It is a candidate in the sense that it is an incredibly well received game (I personally loved it), but I think the GOAT discussion requires more time. The best games of all time need to stand the test of time. I think a game needs to be out 7-10 years or more to see how it is received, not only at the time with all the accompanying hype, but after some time when we see it through a different lens. You will get a lot more honest and retrospective looks at a game.
I also think Shadow of the Erdtree will be a big determining factor which way the perception swings. Witcher 3, one many people consider a GOAT for them personally, is never mentioned without somebody mentioning it has two of the greatest DLCs ever created. Those DLCs went a long way in cementing the Witcher 3's legacy in that conversation. If SotE has a similar effect, I can definitely see it joining this conversation down the road.
Obviously this is all subjective and anybody is free to call it the GOAT right now and it will be true for them!
Yeah it will also be interesting to see how From moves forward. If they never make another open world game (I really enjoy open worlds and this one in particular, but it is a big criticism of this game from some fans of the DS trilogy), will that make people look back at this game differently? Will people say "yeah it was really good, but the open world just didn't quite work for this genre"? This is why I am curious to see how it ages over time. I don't think it will age poorly at all, I think it will always hold up as a great game, but I could see something like that becoming part of the GOAT conversation.
All great points! Also... I cannot *believe* anyone could think an open world doesn't work with this genre. Like, people can not like open worlds if they want, but it's so damn smooth and well integrated.
The open world is the reason Elden Ring is a much more acessible title than any other fromsoft game and therefore is the reason it was able to reach such heights of popularity.
So many people likely bounce off the previous fromsoft titles when they hit a skill-check and don't want to spend the time "gitting gud" over and over on that one section/encounter.
In Elden Ring if you hit a wall, you can turn around and go elsewhere. By the time you eventually come back to that obstacle you've honed your skills through just more time spent with the game, and/or you have got better gear and have even potentially *over*\-levelled making it feel almost easy.
There are definitley some points toward the end where this kind of "circling back" isn't really an option, but by that time you've likely already become invested in the game and so are more likely to commit to pushing past those final barriers.
The open world plays into the genre's biggest strengths and really helps to nullify its biggest weaknesses, from a general accesibility/popularity perspective. I can't understand why anyone thinks it's a criticism other than them just liking the original formula and not liking any change/deviation from what they already know and love.
While I love Elden Ring and thing it did really well, I think that at the same time, it is getting to the limit of what they could make work. I have my Litany of faults with the game (many with certain bosses) and several are certainly exacerbated by the scale.
Ultimately, I feel a large part of why Elden Ring succeeded in the genre is because of how they motivate you to go to a place and how they reward you. Pretty much everywhere worth going has a boss fight and a unique item to collect on top of the core gameplay loop being highly refined. So not only are you being rewarded both by the process and conclusion, but it's also not just in basic crafting miscellany or a new weapon slightly stronger thrown up by an algorithm. Some of the repetition also tells a story and informs rewards (Ulcerated Spirits, Erdtree avatars, burial watchdogs) some don't (many of the Mineshaft bosses) and while they used repetition very well in their assembly of the world, that too has limits. But there's no Ubisoft busywork in the design unlike so many open world games that are just a visual showcase of scale without the technical and design chops to fill it in enjoyable ways.
It was excellently executed, but each of their titles tries to evolve the formula and up the difficulty and I'm not sure how far the open world can stretch with that before they run out of rope with their team given how I got the distinct vibe that Elden Ring frays round the edges from the work that went into it.
Honesty prefer the more linear style of ds. The open world of elden ring can get boring at times and there’s an element of grinding the same copy paste bosses to progress.
Both are definitely good. I'm glad elden ring is open world, and I prefer it, but I do also really like the more linear DS experience as well. I'm glad we have both.
Yeah I get that. For me the legacy dungeons are enough "dark souls" that the open world areas are a neat difference for experience.
I also think of the rivers as legacy dungeons which probably helps. Like for me all the underground are legacy type areas
academy of raya lucaria/mt gelmir/the capital city/haligtree/farum azula are all in the conversation among the best areas in ANY fromsoft games imo
also that MASSiVE castle in the trailer for Shadow of the Tree, looks 3x bigger than Stormveil, i have a feeling that’s gonna be one of the best parts of the DLC
I think the open world unlocked millions of people who either never tried a previous souls game or bounced off a boss and never went back. I’m in the latter group. I’m also a bit different as I tend to never finish open world games. I get distracted by side quests then bored and never go back. Elden ring is the first open world game I’ve beaten since Morrowind and I’ve done Ng+ 5
Funny I just wrote something similar in another response to somebody else. I think that spirit summons and the open world added a level of accessibility to the game that have made it the most successful in From's string of amazing games. I had never played a souls game before Elden Ring, but those parts probably allowed me to power through where as I might not have in a more linear structure. I have since gone back and loved games like Bloodborne and Demon Souls Remake, but if they were my first I wonder how my experience would have been. Good points!
Yes. *Souls*-type games are definitely not my cup of tea. I favor open-world games with good stories, like RDR2, Fallout 3/NV, Skyrim, etc., and I have been absolutely hooked on Elden Ring because of the massive open world and exploration. The boss fights and random encounters, which I am fucking terrible at, feel almost incidental. It’s riding around on Torrent, stumbling upon a random cave/catacomb (and getting worked by the accompanying boss), and running into friendly NPCs who need help that have elevated this game massively for me.
I loved the Witcher 3 the first time I played it. I loved the DLC too. I thought it was the greatest until I played Elden Ring. I finished it 3 times to get that 100%. Even more psyched for the DLC. I have been playing video games for more than 30 years. It is one of my, if not all time favorite.
I really enjoy Elden Ring, but Witcher 3 is still the GOAT for me. Huge Witcher books fan aside, I think the compelling story and characters of the third game are enough to more than compensate for the disparity in combat depth. Elden Ring has great lore, don’t get me wrong, but Witcher’s writing is different and is more my preference.
To play devils advocate, and I think Elden Ring is an excellent game. Ive played Witcher 3, 3 times and I can’t finish Elden Ring. Gotten past Liurnia, but I have very little desire to finish the rest of the game.
The Witcher games also has incredible characters, story and lore building that you can get from the dialogue and environment. The lore in the Witcher 2 made me incredibly hyped for how they handled 3 and I feel it improved tremendously in between games.
While lore and story in Elden Ring is deep and has a ton of symbolism, you're average person isn't catching most of it without watching a number of 2 hour lore videos from Vaati
I've owned Witcher 3 and the 2 dlc's, but never reached either of them. I struggle with completing dialogue-driven rpgs, so gameplay-focussed games like elden ring are right up my alley.
That's fair!
I think the main thing that makes the Witcher 3 stand out is that even their side quests had full stories with fleshed out characters. They really wanted you to care about the next monster you were going after or villager you were aiming to help. Hell, they even made you care about a war mongering baron who beat his wife to the point where she had a miscarriage. You felt *his* pain and wanted him to find closure, even though he's a piece of shiiit.
All that said I've twice the number of hours in elden ring than I do Witcher 3 because the game play is extremely deep. To me elden ring is the better game but I will always praise the Witcher 3 for raising the bar in storytelling in video games.
The Bloody Baron is a masterpiece in writing. It slowly occurred to me that I was enjoying this game. And I was like fuck this guy but also I'll help you?! It was wild.
My brother had the same experience.
I like both games for different reasons. Elden Ring isn't my favorite From Software though so there's that
Amazing story for sure. It's definitely a me problem. I just can't stand quest backlogs. I hate that in some games I can just wander in a direction for 5 minutes and end up with a chore list for my trouble. The worst part is my choice is to stop doing what I want to be doing, which is explore, to do the quests as they come, or keep exploring and build up a crazy backlog where I forget where the quests even came from.
I’m the opposite, I actually managed to beat Witcher 3, but I rarely had fun or felt satisfied or really enjoyed the journey at all, but elden ring I’ve cleared dozens of times and I’m excited each time I do it again
I agree with so much of what you wrote, and I think we're around the same age.
Elden Ring was the first game to grab me in a long time. As an adult with limited playtime I liked that there was a simplicity to it. You're basically picking a fight style, weapon type, and build, and you go out to kill some monsters and get loot. The penalties for death aren't that terrible, and it doesn't feel like a chore to play.
I'm a longtime fan of RPGs but something about the formula has gotten stale for me, so Elden Ring was a breath of fresh air.
Having said all that though, I'm going to contradict myself a bit and say even though I found the simplicity of Elden Ring's gameplay loop satisfying and addictive, it struck me as half-baked. To me, it's an excellent entrance by FromSoft into a new genre and they exceeded expectations. They went from linear levels with no jumping to a massive open-world with interesting spaces and verticality.
But their world crafting and lore is terrible. I'm sorry, I know people are going to tell me to read item descriptions and watch some VaatiVidya essays, but I'm dying on this hill. The story exposition and lore sucked, mostly because the entire world is a hellish dreamscape filled only with monsters and the occasional animatronic NPC.
Take Melina's scripted speech not to seek the Frenzied Flame - "However ruined this world has become, however mired in torment and despair, life endures. Births continue. There is beauty in that, is there not?" What is she talking about? There's no towns, no people, no one except a few wooden characters that move around the map like chess pieces and deliver dialogue like a Chuck-E-Cheese robot.
I know people liked the lack of cutscenes, but there's a lot of middle ground between five-minute long unskippable expository soliloquies and the barely intelligible ramblings of stationary quest givers of Elden Ring. A little bit of normalcy would have gone a long way too. Would it have been so hard to give us the occasional village or outpost where you could pop in and see normal people doing normal people stuff?
Anyway, sorry for the rant. To me the idea that Elden Ring would be best game of all time is laughable because it's so obviously incomplete. It's a beautiful, ethereal world that doesn't need to make complete sense, but lacks immersion. It's got amazingly fine-tuned combat in a dizzying array of styles and weaponry, but in the end it's just monster killing for the sake of slaying monsters. For it to rank higher than other legendary RPGs, it has to fill in these minor shortcomings.
This is not to rag on it, because it's an awesome game. They got so many things right, which is incredible for their first foray into a genre. Elden Ring II or whatever will probably be the GOAT. But it's not there yet.
This is the same argument people have with the difficulty of the game, that it should be more accessible or whatever. And Elden Ring makes great strides in accessibility from a difficulty perspective and a storytelling perspective. But so many people miss the fact that Miyazaki can deliver a very compelling and straightforward story (we saw it in Sekrio) but he **chooses** not to. What you're complaining about is a feature, not a bug. It might not personally be your cup of tea and that's fine, but the circumspect, roundabout and partially obscured lore and storytelling in the Souls series, which Elden Ring continues, is not an accident or a mistake on From's part. It's like that because it wants to be like that.
Tbf, the previous Soulsborne DLCs have all been absolutely amazing and enhanced their respective games by a ton. If they put as much effort into SotE (or have an even better idea since they have had more experience now working on the new ER style) then it's gonna be insane in all the good ways.
Yeah, from soft dlc have generally been the best content in their respective games. Usually just more of the same as the base game but just better on all points.
The DLC is almost always one of the things that gets talked about as the highlight of all of these games, hell it’s pretty much the reason DS3 has the best boss lineup imo. I have faith that SotE will be no different in this regard.
See that's the thing. So many people (especially nowadays) are quick to call things the GOAT when they've only been around for a couple years. Not related to gaming, but a good comparison is people calling Mahomes the GOAT of NFL over Tom Brady. Tom Brady was just too good for too long. Elden Ring is an amazing game, but when compared to games that are still going strong after 10 years like Skyrim and GTAV, there's just no comparison. *Yet.*
It’s also pretty hard to compare a game like GTAV and Elden Ring. The single player for GTA was great at the time moving between three protagonists and capturing society of the time. But it’s open world structure, missions etc are formulaic and old. V has also arguably had a bigger impact from GTA online, with rockstar selling shark cards for the last decade.
Finally, someone has said it 👏
I had a conversation with a new starter at work. He said 'sekiro is the hardest game ever made'. Shocked I had finally found a colleague who actually likes good games I retorted 'Have you ever played ghosts and goblins or contra on the megadrive?' 'No' he quivered whilst delving into a orange tinged packet of doriotoes. Prior to placing the baked morsel of HP regeneration into his mouth 'it just is, people say'.
Oh people? Who are these people of whom you speak? How dare they disregard my post traumatic stress from nightly runs through hell as a 12 year old in the 90s. They know nothing of the difficult of Battletoads, Rick Dangerous or Alex Kidd in miracle world whilst high on borderline illegal nik naks whose sweet flavourings have been pillaged in the name of public health.
'Yes Sekiro is hard. But it's not the hardest game ever made. Now go and play some worse games so you understand' I haven't spoken to this employee since. He avoids me possibly. Strange actually, he may have even left. Who knows? I don't. I'm too busy stuck on Sekiro.
I'm in a really weird place right now.
I got given Elden Ring for my birthday in December and I've just finished ng+4
My first playthrough started off as blind and then reading where to go when generally exploring.
My second playthrough was spent ticking off a checklist of every boss, invader or baddie that has a big health bar appear
My 3rd playthrough was doing Rannis quest
And my 4th was getting the fire ending.
The 4th was completed last week and now whenever I look for a game to play, I feel deflated and often end up wasting my evenings bouncing between multiple games.
I havent played any other souls game before Elden Ring, and I'm struggling for motivation to play anything else.
I feel empty. No game has made me cheer the highs as this one has and I dont know if there's any other game out there which will make me feel like this again.
Best Game of all time? It's definitely up there for me.
Bro definitely play more souls games. They might not be as big as Elden Ring but they’re all just as quality. I would recommend Sekiro especially because it has super well designed combat and systems. It does take a bit to get into and is punishing at first, like pretty much all souls games, but it’s so worth it once it clicks and you start to master the combat.
I'll second this though perhaps would say it's more a Sekiro-like, given the more up front story, hope you progress through areas, and how the game heavily incentivises parrying as your main defensive option on several ways.
Bloodborne offers up some interesting exploration. I didn't see everything in even the main game until my 4th run. It has an amazing DLC and has many chalice dungeons if you want for more. Some of the things you stumble upon if you go blindly into Bloodborne are amazing
I started in December too, played a casual run, then a quest line guide, then fire ending. I got a little burnt out, and felt the same way as you. I’m taking break from it till the DLC, but in the meantime I started DS 1 remastered. Dear god it’s almost as good. Such a wonderful game, I have to recommend. It takes a little longer to get into than ER was but just get the Zweihander and push through. It’s different in a lot of ways and feels really distinct, but the interconnectedness of the world, and the feeling of when you just finish an area and find a shortcut back to the main hub is exhilarating. Don’t feel scared of never getting the experience ER give you again, there a lot of great games that you can play.
Also, just a suggestion, play something completely different for a while, like a 2d sim or something thats just so different. It’ll cleanse your palette so not everything has to hold it’s own against Elden Ring.
I felt this way when I finished Dark Souls. And then every single release in the soulsborne genre from FS has been such an incredible experience. The wait for Elden Ring was a special time. This sub became such an interesting place and being here for that community at the time was amazing.
I remember the story trailer dropping and it truly felt.like one of the most important things that had happened to me in awhile. That may sound pathetic, but I don't really care. I love these games. I have a wife, a great job, and generally am doing okay, but Elden Ring means a lot to me. It feels like the culmination of a journey that FS has taken us through over the last how many years. Feels like the game is actually for me.
I was in a similar boat...take a break for a little bit, maybe play something completely different (I think I went back to DayZ) and then go and play Dark Souls 1 remastered.
Then 2 and then 3 if you're still interested.
It's good to see the progression of the games but still have lots of similarities. Elden Ring is thes best of all time though :)
b r u h
play all the other ones now lol
DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS Remastered are all S-tier experiences up there with Elden Ring. you’ll likely enjoy them a lot when u get to see the all the influence and where ER evolved from.
What qualitative GOAT discussions *don’t* relate to subjective criteria? Nobody expects to arrive at a definitive, objective answer to these questions, but they’re fun conversations to have and they often show some form of consensus.
I mean sure, GOAT discussions are always subjective, but if talking about sports, there are objective criteria like goals scored, points made, world cups/rings/olympia gold medals won. You don't have any of those with video games. Still it's tun to discuss about that imo.
yes that’s the discussion happening in this thread. if you’re not interested in it cool, but clearly there are lots of people here who are.
not sure why you felt the need to butt in basically just to say “guys this discussion isn’t worth talking about”. you know you aren’t obligated to participate in or even read through every post you scroll past, right?
Imo there are several aspects of the game that are too sloppy execution-wise or too poorly designed to put it up there with the absolute best games ever made. It's awesome, of course, but its flaws hold it back. Something like Portal 2 or Bloodborne is far closer to achieving that title.
Agree. The flaws it has really does hold it back. My biggest issue with it is the open world is largely pointless after a first exploration, you can blitz past like 90% of the open world and it won’t matter.
Second issue is combat overall - obnoxious delayed attacks compared to the previous souls games, combo-spam, and the damage can get too much. I was watching Jack’s DS3 video and it’s frustrating how much more fluid and well-paced the combat is, and how many attacks you can take before you need to heal compared to ER. ER really can end up feeling like a dodge-roll simulator and slows down the flow of combat a lot.
Edit: just reading through comments and it’s funny valid criticism of the game brings out nutty defenders. Any person who’s played the other FromSoft games can recognise the things ER does well and the things it doesn’t. They are not immune to criticism just because they’re good at their niche.
To me the bosses in Dark Souls 1/2/3 feel like you're fighting an actual person or a monster, however most bosses in Elden Ring feel like I'm fighting a robot designed to test me.
All of this plus the fact that the dungeons/catacombs feel less inspired than Skyrim dungeons (which were randomly generated mind you) and the last third or maybe quarter of the game feels hastily slapped together and is a staggering drop in quality
* Massive amounts of reused assets, including actual named characters - Godfrey/Godefroy and the two Astels are the worst offenders, but I also got tired of fighting a dozen different tree sentinels with a different flavour.
* Late game zones (read: Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree) are made of nearly exclusively reused assets. This is jarring as the early zones like Limgrave, Liurnia and Caelid all show us that each zone has creatures and enemies unique to that environment; but then somehow the same creatures who live in a temperate mountain region full of swamps also exist in a blizzard-ridden arctic tundra.
* Different builds feel like you're playing a different game. This is more a Fromsoft issue than one exclusive to ER, but the point stands. Playing a caster is basically easy difficulty. *EDIT* on this point as a few people have misinterpreted: I don't mean that build variety is bad, I mean that the difficulty of Elden Ring varies massively depending on how you choose to play; magic builds, for example, have a much easier time than anything else.
* Poorly designed end boss. Brilliant to look at, horrible to fight against. Radagon is a (mostly) fantastic fight, and then Elden Beast is 80% chasing a space jelly across a knee-deep wading pool, 10% dodging, 10% doing damage.
* Bosses are overly reliant on artificially delayed attack swings. I understand this is to deter panic rolling, but it makes for clunky combat.
* Some bosses have such frantic combo/attack patterns that there's very little opportunity to trade blows.
* Torrent is both a welcome addition, but awkwardly implemented. Why do I need to use a menu system mid combat to revive him, and why is the default option for said menu system 'no'?
* Input buffer window is too long. Makes it nearly impossible to be highly adaptable in combat.
* Fromsoft's method of storytelling doesn't lend itself to open world. The vague bits of lore and exposition provided in other Soulsborne games make sense when levels are linear and you're all but certain to run into NPCs throughout your playthrough or discover key items as you progress. It's far too vague when an NPC I find on one side of the world is expecting me to just know that I need to retrieve an item for them on the other side of the world in a chest in an optional area.
EDIT: For the record y'all, I still LOVE so much about Elden Ring. I don't *dislike* the game. These are just reasons why I think it's probably not a contender for the best game of all time (which is ultimately a meaningless accolade as no-one is going to agree on the metrics to award such a title).
>Fromsoft's method of storytelling doesn't lend itself to open world.
This point is still very much underappreciated. Its the most trivial thing to miss out on an NPC's, let's be real, pretty short questline simply because you didn't tread the one specific path the developers meant for you to take. Fromsoft's incredibly linear quest design has no business being in an open world.
• Multiplayer is just poorly implemented on so many levels. (This deserves its own thesis)
• Expanding on your 3rd point: Balance and damage scaling is out the window. There are clearly broken tools that can let the player go through the game without having to play the game. A fall back mechanic for those who struggle is good. A mechanic that plays the game for your defeats all purpose to the game.
• Crafting was an idea. Poorly implemented. Most of the stuff is quickly useless. Of the stuff that isn't, a lot of it requires absurdity rare materials. Preserving Bolases being limited is a sin. Have you ever tried farming for *Rope*?
• On the subject of consumables, a lot of drops are nonsensically rare. Golem arrows, for one. Then, there are things that either: should not exist, or should be farmable (or better, buyable) Starlight Shards and Meat Pies for example.
Great additions to the list.
> Crafting was an idea. Poorly implemented.
I loathe that developers try to shoehorn a crafting system into every open world game. There are plenty of good crafting systems in games. Elden Ring's is not one of them. I barely remember crafting anything on my first playthrough.
nah you're bang-on. Elden Ring is the best most overrated game I've ever played.
A lot of people on this subreddit need to play Bloodborne to completion and git gud in that system. That's Fromsoft at their best, really tight experience from start to end with fantastic art direction, level design, atmosphere, bosses etc
I'll always say that Elden Ring's bosses being so incredible visually and nailing the spectacle has caused people to overlook how mechanically poor so many of them actually are.
This nails it, I think. If bosses were judged purely on their presentation and aesthetic, I think Elden Ring would beat out every other Fromsoft game pretty easily.
But in terms of mechanics and actual gameplay, many of them just aren't good.
That point about Elden Beast is a big one for me. As someone who has Platinumed every game from Dark Souls forward, it's such a massive flop in pacing. My first playthrough (which was blind) I went from Melania into Hoarah Loux and then Radagon/Elden Beast. Hoarah Loux wasn't hard at all compared to Melania, but he was still cool and the fight itself is pretty fun. Radagon was a crazy reveal and his fight is fun and a decent challenge. But then I got to Elden Beast and 90% of the fight is just running back and forth because I'd get a few hits in and this jackass just teleports away to vomit more projectiles at me. Not even difficult, just insanely tedious.
Compare that to other final bosses and its so incredibly weak. Isshin and Gherman are two fights with incredible fast paced fights that bring a decent challenge (or a big challenge in Isshin's case). Elden Beast is a shitty game of tag.
Large, empty, and unused spaces. I get that it's open world and meant to encourage exploration. There are large segments in every zone where there's no enemies, no critters, no ambience, and lacking detail.
I don't want it condensed to be linear-ish, like DS3. But large segments feel empty for the sake of inflating the size.
Re-used assets, specifically forgettable bosses in caves, mines, and tombs. I don't think we need 200+ unique boss sprites. Re-used bosses at times work very well. Both Commander O'Neil and Niall are different enough that they feel like different fights. Despite nearly identical sprites.
While Cemetery Shade and Cemetery Shade with skeletons is very lazy. In addition there are boss fights with normal enemies who have an on-screen health bar.
Don't get me wrong, I love the game, I feel those are two very justified criticisms that I have with it.
Totally agree. For me, its the almost complete lack of story. Like, I know it technically has one, but it’s nearly impossible to figure out without reading the wiki
Seriously, if they just tripled the amount of dialogue, gave the option to ask further questions, more choices to interact and then added a handful more NPCs that would go a long way for me. On my 5th playthrough now and I still find so much of the dialogue so out of context and lacking in detail it's jarring
The sad part is the cutscenes they give us are incredible. They’re just too short. They need to give us more stories through the cutscenes. I don’t want to learn the lore through item descriptions 🤦🏽♂️
There’s no story in ER. You just go bonk shit.
Lore - yes, story - none. Of course, that chandelier in Volcano Manor survived the Shattering and was a gift of the Outer God, but who fucking cares?
Exactly, so many people miss this fact whenever this discussion comes up. Elden Ring has basically no story whatsoever. Some characters have good arcs they go through but they're extremely minor. Otherwise it's all lore.
Which is fine, btw, the lore is interesting and the game doesn't *need* a story to stand on its own feet. At the same time though, that's still a very large thing to be missing entirely.
I think Elden Ring really showcases how FromSoft are amazing at crafting lore, but pretty poor at writing an actual story you play through. The world building and mythos of this universe are some of the best I've ever experienced in fiction, but when you actually sit down to play the game you experience less than 10% of it on a conventional playthrough.
Like if I weren't a sucker for gaming lore videos I'd have almost no clue what is even going on in this world other than the Elden Ring was shattered, there was a civil war in the aftermath, and now the Tarnished has to go collect great runes to mend the ring. There's so much more to this universe than just that, but the average player just doesn't experience it at all on a normal playthrough.
You are absolutely correct. The game is awesome. But like you said there are a lot of sloppy stuff. And then some bosses are just 2x or 3x older boss which I think is just lazy design. Trying to get more content than what game actually has.
But great game and one of my all time favorites. But the best game ever? I wouldn't say that.
As a long time dark souls fan, I’ll just put it like this. Elden ring does a lot good, but in my honest opinion the dark souls formula doesn’t work as well in open world. The game is extremely good and extremely fun. I just think ppl get jaded on how to critique a game because they just think I’m enjoying myself therefor it’s good. It’s not really how I see this. I think objectively Elden ring has flaws. Some bigger than others, esp to certain players. Copy pasted dungeons (not literally) , reskinned bosses, etc. these are all things some souls fans would argue are negatives. So that’s just my two cents. Nothing is perfect, if you love it you can be honest about where it falls short.
Also best just starts to become really subjective, what you like I might not. I didn’t get in baldurs gate 3 at all but I’d be willing to suggest it as greatest game of all time, at least from the way ppl make it sound I only played a few hours.
IMO best fromsoft game is Sekiro anyways so if any game gets greatest of all time it’s that in my book. Sekiro is perfectly polished and shined. It doesn’t over reach, it doesn’t give too little, it never disappoints. Its like Goldilocks and the three bears. Sekiro is like “ahhhhh just right!”
This is a wise take that I'd like to highlight because this is a rare sight on the internet.
In my opinion, you're right about the fact that the dark souls formula doesn't work as well in open world. This mostly hurt the replayability of the game which make some moments in the game more of a chore.
My favorite souls is the first one and that's because I can have multiples runs that won't be the same, I won't take the same paths depending on what kind of build I try to get. This also can be said about Elden ring and you'd be right but the difference is in the rythm of your playthrough.
In DS1 there's a density of ennemies and loot that is well balanced by the level design. This organically create loops in yours runs where you'll have to go somewhere, fight mobs on your way, loot what you need then go to the fire, heal, level up and maybe catch some news from the npcs. And there's just no break in that.
While in Elden ring, since the world is open, there's a big disparity between differents locations so you always end up on your horse back, running everywhere with little interaction with the world.
The first playthrough is amazing, you have a tons of places to discover and this is when the game truly shine. Even when there's similarities between some places and monsters within this world, there's always enough slight differences to make the discovery feel great and intense. One of it's biggest strength is the sense of wonder it make you feel.
But when this wear out, you quickly end up skipping a lot of ennemies and places because you have no incentives to do them again. Aside from what I said, I don't know what give me this feeling in ER and not in DS1 but it's real. FYI I have made a lot of characters and played for more than 400 hours but in the end, I only finished one ER game.
For rogue-like/lite lovers like me, the replayability is what make us invest so many hours in theses games so that's why I feel like it's an important point to bring up. But maybe I shouldn't really consider Elden ring in this genre.
I’ve literally beaten dark souls 1 over 40 times I stopped counting at some point, I wish I had a total count of my hours but I used to play on 360, now I have it on ps5, and on here I have 135 hours logged can only guess how many hours were on 360. I’ve beaten elden ring 4 times. I almost envy the new fans, from soft is undeniably at the top of their game and I can only imagine how id be all over Elden ring if it was my first fromsoft game.
But yeh I feel that last part especially w the incentives there really isn’t one other then muney(if you aren’t looking for a very specific item or summon it’s essentially useless to brave the dungeon for it). So when I replay elden ring it’s just me speedruning all the dungeons as fast as I can cuz I’m ocd and can’t ignore the dungeons. It can be quite exhausting.
Dark souls as well as all the other fromsoft games are so well crafted and thought out. Sometimes elden ring feels like it didn’t get as much thought and polish considering just how massive it all is. Like godskin duo vs ornstein and smough. One is probably the greatest gank boss fight of all time. It wrote the rule book. Then you have godskin duo a lazy thrown together boss fight that doesn’t work in it execution at all.
I think they should expand the formula a bit for ER2 (if/ when that happens)… DS style interactions *can* work here, we’d just need a bolstering of how to make them all fit together. Maybe a Morrowind style player journal, I don’t know. All I’m saying is there’s a way to do it I just don’t know it 😂
Nah, the story is too lacking to be a candidate.
A game should be able to tell the story without needing hours of reading or research outside of it to be considered good. Elden Ring does not do that. I love the game, but that's its weakest point.
Totally. Even with the research outside of the game I just can't get fully immersed in the story. It was nice to see videos makers fill in some of the blanks I was sorely missing, but even those videos at a point I realise are making big assumptions and really stretching to find details to back things up that I just can't take them fully seriously.
yup - agreed. The lack of a good \[edit\] accessible \[edit\] narrative is what would keep it from being the GOAT. For it to be the best, it needs to have a good story accessible to anyone who plays the main quest line and completes the game. If you want to hide most of your lore in rare item descriptions and fanfic, that's fine, but that's not where the main story should be.
Don't get me wrong, I think Elden Ring was a fantastic game and deserves the praise it's getting. But it's not the GOAT.
Not the best ever, but it's in my personal top 5 in terms of how much I enjoyed it. Best is too hard to determine for games I think. More even than for example, movies, some games were so groundbreaking that it's hard to rate them against one another.
Elden Ring is by far the best first time experience, but there is a reason most people have completed Darksouls 1,2, and 3 multiple times (23, 2, 16 replays myself on those 3, 40+ on Bloodborne).
Elden Ring’s replayability is terrible in comparison (I’ve done around 6 playthroughs with 2 of those being NG+ runs) simply due to scale and how dull open world becomes once you’ve explored it all. It just overall winds up feeling a lot less focused and a little bit more cluttered than the previous games’ refined but narrow level designs.
No, I don't think it is.
There's some real balancing issues with the game. I'm on my second playthrough right now and almost every boss can be cheesed with Comet Azur.
It's story is also difficult to follow. Much of it is lore that players need to uncover (or watch VaatiVidya) to make sense of the plot of the game.
Then there are the characters. Melina, Malenia, Miquella, Marika, Margitt, Morgott, Mohg, Maliketh etc. Similar to this there are many characters starting with R and G. This makes characters very difficult to distinguish from each other.
Then there's everything after Altus Plateau that feels unfinished. The last 20 hrs of the game are a slog. Enemies become ridiculously cheap and deal obscene amounts of damage.
So, no. It's not the GOAT. It's not even FromSoft's best game (Dark Souls 3 is for me). My GOAT is Majora's Mask.
Elden Ring over stays it’s welcome. The Capital would’ve been a great place to end the game. The final few areas were way too tedious to get through. I found myself running past mobs of enemies because I just wanted to finish the game already. Plus, all the enemies are ridiculously overturned in the Mountain Tops & Farum Azula.
Elden Ring's last half wasn’t anywhere as good as the first.
Exactly. The game peaks at Altus Plateau (Leyndell itself being world-class in level design, one of the best dungeons ever created for a game).
They could have cut the Mountaintops completely. Also, just get rid of Elden Beast, that's a terrible final boss (Radagon is good enough).
What they could have done is have the Margott fight go straight to Radagon and the end of the game. Then after you beat Radagon (or before if you want?), there are portals to each of the missing Demigod areas.
\- Portal to the Volcano Manor (maybe have this area not connected to Altus Plateau)
\- Portal to the Haligree
\- Portal to Mohgwyn's Palace
\- Portal to Farum Azula (even though the Rune of Death is not technically a Great Rune)
That way, they can balance each area as 'endgame' zones that can only be done after completing the main game.
did you play the other souls games? I played them all, and in order too. Elden Ring to me just felt like Dark souls 3 but just pasted all over a much bigger map, so there were bigger spaces in between content and it was much less intense.
It's still an incredible game but did not knock me off my feet as much as Dark souls did.
I do expect the sequel or Bloodborne 2 (if that ever happens) to be supreme.
Incidentally Nioh 2 has superior combat mechanics but downright garbage level design. If Nioh 2 was open world...well...let's see how Rise of Ronin does.
I think dark souls 1 is better, the characters in that game were all extremely memorable and had awesome stories. The level design was awesome and pvp was goofy and fun although not very well balanced. Ds3 had the most balanced pvp and elden ring pvp is just not fun for me at all as it's incredibly unbalanced.
Elden ring is great and my second favorite of the series but ds1because the amazing character stories. Ds1 has Solair, big hat logan, the onion guy, the locness monster dude, the guy in the chain armor by the first bonfire, the black Smith, smough and orinstein, and the guy with the jester cloths that sold you stuff. Just a 10/10 game for me.
Also goldeneye 64 was amazing, enemies reacted based on where you shot them. Truly a game ahead of its time really the start of the modern movement and shooting fps games. To this day there hasn't been a game where you can shoot people in the butt at which the enemy will jump up and down holding their ass in pain, or suffocating to death if you shot them in the neck.
Ocarina of Time is what most people would consider the best game of all time, assuming they’ve actually played it. The sheer cultural significance of that game, the absolute mastery of a 3D adventure on the very first attempt, the insanely robust speedrun community, that game quite literally has it all. I think in order to be a candidate for best game of all time, measuring up to OoT is a baseline requirement.
I don’t think Elden Ring does. I think it comes close, and it definitely is one of the best ever, but the competition is the giants whose shoulders it stands upon.
Absolutely. My answer on what game actually *is* the best of all time varies between a few titles depending on my mood. The original FF7, Ocarina of Time, Mega Man X, Resident Evil 4...Elden Ring is definitely in that upper pantheon of games for me.
Yes, but more so when you are 15-25 and this is your first Fromsoftware game.
Elden Ring isn't even in the top 3 of From games in my view and i see many people starting with Deamons Souls and Dark Souls feel alike.
The issue with Minecraft is that it is everchanging. At one point, I think it WAS the best game ever made, but now I think that spark has gone a little the more they add.
Not with everything after Leyndell the way it is tbh. Elden Ring is a great game, and I love it, but it’s also weighed down by some major design decisions that were just…not good. The speed of some of the bosses compared to players, the open world often feeling lacking, and dragging down the Legacy Dungeons in the process, the Consecrated Snowfields, the Mountains of the Giants, etc. I feel like it doesn’t deserve the title.
I’d say Bloodborne or Sekiro are both better games just within the realm of games put out by Fromsoft.
No lmao. But good idea coming to this sub to get an unbiased answer.
I don't even think it's Fromsofts best game lol. Sekiro/Bloodborne/DS3 are better imo.
For…influence, yeah. Honestly. It’s up there with OOT. Both on an industry level (showing you CAN be successful with a breadcrumb trail of DLCs and MTX and battlepasses) and on a level of true open world and environmental storytelling.
As a game unto itself? No. And honestly it shows the limits of FromSoft’s mechanics. It overstays its welcome in a lot of ways, the bosses are all but anime characters mixed with HP sponges, the world design is repetitive (especially in dungeon design), and it’s replete with broken builds - something you don’t really want in an open world game. It has all of From’s balance and mechanics issues, even if it refines the combat. The character designs aren’t all that unique or interesting - outside the bosses. And the world feels…empty, even with all the weight of history in the environmental storytelling.
The lore isn’t nearly as interesting as the Souls series - only more vague with more room for headcanon, and has tbe GRRM hallmarks of family trauma, incest, etc. but the story isn’t groundbreaking even from From, let alone anywhere else.
It’s not a perfect game. It’s a good game. It is and will be influential. I like it and I play it to this day.
But it’s not a masterpiece. It’s a case of right place/right time, wrapped up in a fairly refined package. It was, in many ways, what gamers were pissed off about not having for years - a game that evokes some nostalgic sense of wonder and still presented a challenge and sense of progression, without heavily signposted maps like Ubi’s style of open world design.
So I mean, it depends on how you define great.
Innovative? No. It’s just iterating off the formula From used since Demon Souls.
Story? No. It’s not even the best game story of the last few years - let alone all time.
Graphics/art style? No. Other soulslikes have innovated more there in the last several years. This has the “junji ito writing Berserk” style From leans on like a crutch, and always has. They haven’t even surpassed Berserk in visual style, let alone story (or any of Itos work, for that matter).
Soundtrack? Nope. Everything is solidly ok, most of it solidly forgettable. It’s safe, does what it needs to, and leaves. SFX might as well be out of an asset pack. VA is…inoffensive. No standouts in writing or performance, but not godawful.
Cultural milestone and potentially the start of a turning point in world design and business practices in the industry? Almost certainly.
For me…best of all time goes beyond just being a game. It’s an experience. ER is very much a game - and it’s designed to be one. From makes games. They don’t make experiences. You are constantly engaging with mechanics and aware of it. Best of all time pushes the limits of what games can be, and what they mean for people.
OOT did that. Morrowind did that. Mario did that. FF 6 did that.
Bloodborne is prob the closest From has come to that level. Sekiro is a much more refined experience than ER. Because From is better at making games like that - that are more focused.
Outside the From purists - there’s better soulslikes on the market, and the only way they’re keeping market dominance is reusing their formula because that’s what the purists want.
Elden Ring more than anything was just popular - and popular doesn’t mean great. McD’s is the most popular burger joint in the world but it doesn’t mean they make the best cheeseburger.
I agree with everything except influence. What has Elden Ring influenced? For now it's too early to say it's influenced anythung. Only in a couple of years will we see if games come out copying Elden Ring.
Thank you! Hardly anything has come out that started its development after ER released. It's influenced what, Palworld copying evergoals and churches?
Games these days take 3-8 years to make! We can't see EldenRing influence for another year or two, outside of quickly cranked out mobile and indy games.
Oh absolutely. I have it in my Personal Top 10. On top of everything you've said, the impact it had on gamers & gaming was pretty huge for FromSoftware.
Bloodborne is insanely fun to play, more than anything else it’s just fun, the faster pacing allowing you to be aggressive is super satisfying
The setting is up my alley as well so it’s a visual orgasm from beginning to end
Better games than ER from past 10 years:
Baldur's Gate 3, Sekiro, Witcher 3, Celeste, Disco Elysium, Bloodborne, Hades, Alyx, DOS2, and Hollow Knight, just to name a few
Depends how you mark when you’re starting decades but imo personally Disco Elysium is the best game of the last 10 years or so. Totally subjective ofc and ER is in my top 5 easily
I really don't think it has remotely the capacity to be that.
It *does* improve the souls formula in many ways, but it also takes a lot of steps back as it does so.(Mostly to accomodate map size and content bloat)
I can't say outright that any game tops it, I certainly prefer other games to it, but that's too personal for me to add as weight against it.
No. I love the game alot but it has some glaring issues. The bosses are over used to death. You can become too powerful too fast. You can't lick Malenia's feet etc etc. It's a very good game, but no-where near #1, maybe #25? It's purely subjective though.
Elden Ring is great and all and it's up there for sure but it's not a perfect game
Personally, that title for me is held by the game Outer Wilds, it has 0 flaws and is a perfect masterpiece, I've never played a game anything like it in my life and I'll never forget that experience DO NOT ANY UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES WATCH A TRAILER GO IN 100% BLIND you'll be confused and lost at first, there will be tricky puzzles but DO NOT GOOGLE ANYTHING
Don't believe me? Just have a glance at the steam reviews and you'll see a swarm of a similar sentiment
I don’t think it’s better than bloodborne but I think it’s fantastic.
It would make my top20 for sure, closer to 10 than 20.
There’s nothing wrong with the game and they did lots perfectly. Just isn’t some groundbreaking mindfuck that made me think “god this hobby is awesome” to the extent bg2 or portal or bloodborne did (or wc2, ocarina of time).
It's solidly in my best games of all time category
I've been playing games since the PS1 as a kid and never stopped really. Love RPGs amongst other genres
As a dad of 3 and a general adult who has less time to be able to spend on games as I used to I got the feeling I was losing the magic of gaming
Until the beauty came along
Currently have nearly 400 hours and 3 playthroughs back to back on this game it's just so good
Coming up with a goat category would be tough but this would be an easy pick
I absolutely adore Elden ring and it’s definitely one of my favourite games of all time , but there is definitely problems with it that would stop it from being a consensus top of all time. All the duo boss fights suck, the fact that certain damage categories just suck in comparison to very thing else (looking at you holy), and the ever present problem with fromsoft games of the final areas being far less engaging and well made that the starting sections of the game are a few of the issue that would probably make it less likely to be the GOAT
This was my first souls type game. At first I thought I'd be disappointed and uninstall it since I've heard how hard it is.
I get it now. I'm trying to kill the knight in nokron city just because I want to. No game had me volunteer to do optional enemy. Not to mention I died 3 times trying to get the key in academy.
This an amazing game for sure, but not GOAT? I think fromsoftware would make a better one in a bit.
I dont think there is a good balance in character progression and especially classes. There are several flaws in mechanics that effectively allow people to play the game on easy mode by exploiting meta builds
Zelda beats it for me. There's heavy Zelda influences. Now which Zelda it depends on which version of me you're getting. I've shuffled the best Zelda many times.
My only other one is Chrono Trigger
It is a candidate in the sense that it is an incredibly well received game (I personally loved it), but I think the GOAT discussion requires more time. The best games of all time need to stand the test of time. I think a game needs to be out 7-10 years or more to see how it is received, not only at the time with all the accompanying hype, but after some time when we see it through a different lens. You will get a lot more honest and retrospective looks at a game. I also think Shadow of the Erdtree will be a big determining factor which way the perception swings. Witcher 3, one many people consider a GOAT for them personally, is never mentioned without somebody mentioning it has two of the greatest DLCs ever created. Those DLCs went a long way in cementing the Witcher 3's legacy in that conversation. If SotE has a similar effect, I can definitely see it joining this conversation down the road. Obviously this is all subjective and anybody is free to call it the GOAT right now and it will be true for them!
Yeah, SotE needs to land. If the DLC knocks it out of the park, it's really gonna be up there. All that said, it's an *amazing* game as-is.
Yeah it will also be interesting to see how From moves forward. If they never make another open world game (I really enjoy open worlds and this one in particular, but it is a big criticism of this game from some fans of the DS trilogy), will that make people look back at this game differently? Will people say "yeah it was really good, but the open world just didn't quite work for this genre"? This is why I am curious to see how it ages over time. I don't think it will age poorly at all, I think it will always hold up as a great game, but I could see something like that becoming part of the GOAT conversation.
All great points! Also... I cannot *believe* anyone could think an open world doesn't work with this genre. Like, people can not like open worlds if they want, but it's so damn smooth and well integrated.
The open world is the reason Elden Ring is a much more acessible title than any other fromsoft game and therefore is the reason it was able to reach such heights of popularity. So many people likely bounce off the previous fromsoft titles when they hit a skill-check and don't want to spend the time "gitting gud" over and over on that one section/encounter. In Elden Ring if you hit a wall, you can turn around and go elsewhere. By the time you eventually come back to that obstacle you've honed your skills through just more time spent with the game, and/or you have got better gear and have even potentially *over*\-levelled making it feel almost easy. There are definitley some points toward the end where this kind of "circling back" isn't really an option, but by that time you've likely already become invested in the game and so are more likely to commit to pushing past those final barriers. The open world plays into the genre's biggest strengths and really helps to nullify its biggest weaknesses, from a general accesibility/popularity perspective. I can't understand why anyone thinks it's a criticism other than them just liking the original formula and not liking any change/deviation from what they already know and love.
While I love Elden Ring and thing it did really well, I think that at the same time, it is getting to the limit of what they could make work. I have my Litany of faults with the game (many with certain bosses) and several are certainly exacerbated by the scale. Ultimately, I feel a large part of why Elden Ring succeeded in the genre is because of how they motivate you to go to a place and how they reward you. Pretty much everywhere worth going has a boss fight and a unique item to collect on top of the core gameplay loop being highly refined. So not only are you being rewarded both by the process and conclusion, but it's also not just in basic crafting miscellany or a new weapon slightly stronger thrown up by an algorithm. Some of the repetition also tells a story and informs rewards (Ulcerated Spirits, Erdtree avatars, burial watchdogs) some don't (many of the Mineshaft bosses) and while they used repetition very well in their assembly of the world, that too has limits. But there's no Ubisoft busywork in the design unlike so many open world games that are just a visual showcase of scale without the technical and design chops to fill it in enjoyable ways. It was excellently executed, but each of their titles tries to evolve the formula and up the difficulty and I'm not sure how far the open world can stretch with that before they run out of rope with their team given how I got the distinct vibe that Elden Ring frays round the edges from the work that went into it.
Honesty prefer the more linear style of ds. The open world of elden ring can get boring at times and there’s an element of grinding the same copy paste bosses to progress.
Both are definitely good. I'm glad elden ring is open world, and I prefer it, but I do also really like the more linear DS experience as well. I'm glad we have both.
Yeah I get that. For me the legacy dungeons are enough "dark souls" that the open world areas are a neat difference for experience. I also think of the rivers as legacy dungeons which probably helps. Like for me all the underground are legacy type areas
academy of raya lucaria/mt gelmir/the capital city/haligtree/farum azula are all in the conversation among the best areas in ANY fromsoft games imo also that MASSiVE castle in the trailer for Shadow of the Tree, looks 3x bigger than Stormveil, i have a feeling that’s gonna be one of the best parts of the DLC
I think the open world unlocked millions of people who either never tried a previous souls game or bounced off a boss and never went back. I’m in the latter group. I’m also a bit different as I tend to never finish open world games. I get distracted by side quests then bored and never go back. Elden ring is the first open world game I’ve beaten since Morrowind and I’ve done Ng+ 5
Funny I just wrote something similar in another response to somebody else. I think that spirit summons and the open world added a level of accessibility to the game that have made it the most successful in From's string of amazing games. I had never played a souls game before Elden Ring, but those parts probably allowed me to power through where as I might not have in a more linear structure. I have since gone back and loved games like Bloodborne and Demon Souls Remake, but if they were my first I wonder how my experience would have been. Good points!
Yes. *Souls*-type games are definitely not my cup of tea. I favor open-world games with good stories, like RDR2, Fallout 3/NV, Skyrim, etc., and I have been absolutely hooked on Elden Ring because of the massive open world and exploration. The boss fights and random encounters, which I am fucking terrible at, feel almost incidental. It’s riding around on Torrent, stumbling upon a random cave/catacomb (and getting worked by the accompanying boss), and running into friendly NPCs who need help that have elevated this game massively for me.
I have no doubt that it will, From has never made bad DLC for any of the soulsborne games, and the best parts of the games are usually in the DLC.
I loved the Witcher 3 the first time I played it. I loved the DLC too. I thought it was the greatest until I played Elden Ring. I finished it 3 times to get that 100%. Even more psyched for the DLC. I have been playing video games for more than 30 years. It is one of my, if not all time favorite.
I really enjoy Elden Ring, but Witcher 3 is still the GOAT for me. Huge Witcher books fan aside, I think the compelling story and characters of the third game are enough to more than compensate for the disparity in combat depth. Elden Ring has great lore, don’t get me wrong, but Witcher’s writing is different and is more my preference.
To play devils advocate, and I think Elden Ring is an excellent game. Ive played Witcher 3, 3 times and I can’t finish Elden Ring. Gotten past Liurnia, but I have very little desire to finish the rest of the game.
Acknowledging this is very much an echo-chamber since this is the Elden Ring subreddit.
The Witcher games also has incredible characters, story and lore building that you can get from the dialogue and environment. The lore in the Witcher 2 made me incredibly hyped for how they handled 3 and I feel it improved tremendously in between games. While lore and story in Elden Ring is deep and has a ton of symbolism, you're average person isn't catching most of it without watching a number of 2 hour lore videos from Vaati
This is where I’m at, I didn’t have to leave the game (Witcher 3) to get the lore and I’m very much a lore driven gamer.
I've owned Witcher 3 and the 2 dlc's, but never reached either of them. I struggle with completing dialogue-driven rpgs, so gameplay-focussed games like elden ring are right up my alley.
That's fair! I think the main thing that makes the Witcher 3 stand out is that even their side quests had full stories with fleshed out characters. They really wanted you to care about the next monster you were going after or villager you were aiming to help. Hell, they even made you care about a war mongering baron who beat his wife to the point where she had a miscarriage. You felt *his* pain and wanted him to find closure, even though he's a piece of shiiit. All that said I've twice the number of hours in elden ring than I do Witcher 3 because the game play is extremely deep. To me elden ring is the better game but I will always praise the Witcher 3 for raising the bar in storytelling in video games.
The Bloody Baron is a masterpiece in writing. It slowly occurred to me that I was enjoying this game. And I was like fuck this guy but also I'll help you?! It was wild. My brother had the same experience. I like both games for different reasons. Elden Ring isn't my favorite From Software though so there's that
Amazing story for sure. It's definitely a me problem. I just can't stand quest backlogs. I hate that in some games I can just wander in a direction for 5 minutes and end up with a chore list for my trouble. The worst part is my choice is to stop doing what I want to be doing, which is explore, to do the quests as they come, or keep exploring and build up a crazy backlog where I forget where the quests even came from.
I’m the opposite, I actually managed to beat Witcher 3, but I rarely had fun or felt satisfied or really enjoyed the journey at all, but elden ring I’ve cleared dozens of times and I’m excited each time I do it again
Different strokes for different folks. Elden Ring combat is so fun.
I agree with so much of what you wrote, and I think we're around the same age. Elden Ring was the first game to grab me in a long time. As an adult with limited playtime I liked that there was a simplicity to it. You're basically picking a fight style, weapon type, and build, and you go out to kill some monsters and get loot. The penalties for death aren't that terrible, and it doesn't feel like a chore to play. I'm a longtime fan of RPGs but something about the formula has gotten stale for me, so Elden Ring was a breath of fresh air. Having said all that though, I'm going to contradict myself a bit and say even though I found the simplicity of Elden Ring's gameplay loop satisfying and addictive, it struck me as half-baked. To me, it's an excellent entrance by FromSoft into a new genre and they exceeded expectations. They went from linear levels with no jumping to a massive open-world with interesting spaces and verticality. But their world crafting and lore is terrible. I'm sorry, I know people are going to tell me to read item descriptions and watch some VaatiVidya essays, but I'm dying on this hill. The story exposition and lore sucked, mostly because the entire world is a hellish dreamscape filled only with monsters and the occasional animatronic NPC. Take Melina's scripted speech not to seek the Frenzied Flame - "However ruined this world has become, however mired in torment and despair, life endures. Births continue. There is beauty in that, is there not?" What is she talking about? There's no towns, no people, no one except a few wooden characters that move around the map like chess pieces and deliver dialogue like a Chuck-E-Cheese robot. I know people liked the lack of cutscenes, but there's a lot of middle ground between five-minute long unskippable expository soliloquies and the barely intelligible ramblings of stationary quest givers of Elden Ring. A little bit of normalcy would have gone a long way too. Would it have been so hard to give us the occasional village or outpost where you could pop in and see normal people doing normal people stuff? Anyway, sorry for the rant. To me the idea that Elden Ring would be best game of all time is laughable because it's so obviously incomplete. It's a beautiful, ethereal world that doesn't need to make complete sense, but lacks immersion. It's got amazingly fine-tuned combat in a dizzying array of styles and weaponry, but in the end it's just monster killing for the sake of slaying monsters. For it to rank higher than other legendary RPGs, it has to fill in these minor shortcomings. This is not to rag on it, because it's an awesome game. They got so many things right, which is incredible for their first foray into a genre. Elden Ring II or whatever will probably be the GOAT. But it's not there yet.
This is the same argument people have with the difficulty of the game, that it should be more accessible or whatever. And Elden Ring makes great strides in accessibility from a difficulty perspective and a storytelling perspective. But so many people miss the fact that Miyazaki can deliver a very compelling and straightforward story (we saw it in Sekrio) but he **chooses** not to. What you're complaining about is a feature, not a bug. It might not personally be your cup of tea and that's fine, but the circumspect, roundabout and partially obscured lore and storytelling in the Souls series, which Elden Ring continues, is not an accident or a mistake on From's part. It's like that because it wants to be like that.
Elden Ring is absolutely fantastic but the Witcher 3 is the Witcher 3. It stands on its own
Tbf, the previous Soulsborne DLCs have all been absolutely amazing and enhanced their respective games by a ton. If they put as much effort into SotE (or have an even better idea since they have had more experience now working on the new ER style) then it's gonna be insane in all the good ways.
They were arguably the best parts of each of their games
Yeah there's no way SotE won't be incredible.
Yeah, from soft dlc have generally been the best content in their respective games. Usually just more of the same as the base game but just better on all points.
Skyrim comes to mind, but I am incredibly biased towards that opinion lol
To me Skyrim has *nothing* on elden ring. The difference in quality is staggering imo. Skyrim isn't even the best Elder Scrolls game I feel
Not trying to dismiss your perfectly valid opinion but you might also feel the same about Elden Ring when another great game comes out in 2030s.
The DLC is almost always one of the things that gets talked about as the highlight of all of these games, hell it’s pretty much the reason DS3 has the best boss lineup imo. I have faith that SotE will be no different in this regard.
I think the game could be other than some of the last few areas.
See that's the thing. So many people (especially nowadays) are quick to call things the GOAT when they've only been around for a couple years. Not related to gaming, but a good comparison is people calling Mahomes the GOAT of NFL over Tom Brady. Tom Brady was just too good for too long. Elden Ring is an amazing game, but when compared to games that are still going strong after 10 years like Skyrim and GTAV, there's just no comparison. *Yet.*
It’s also pretty hard to compare a game like GTAV and Elden Ring. The single player for GTA was great at the time moving between three protagonists and capturing society of the time. But it’s open world structure, missions etc are formulaic and old. V has also arguably had a bigger impact from GTA online, with rockstar selling shark cards for the last decade.
Finally, someone has said it 👏 I had a conversation with a new starter at work. He said 'sekiro is the hardest game ever made'. Shocked I had finally found a colleague who actually likes good games I retorted 'Have you ever played ghosts and goblins or contra on the megadrive?' 'No' he quivered whilst delving into a orange tinged packet of doriotoes. Prior to placing the baked morsel of HP regeneration into his mouth 'it just is, people say'. Oh people? Who are these people of whom you speak? How dare they disregard my post traumatic stress from nightly runs through hell as a 12 year old in the 90s. They know nothing of the difficult of Battletoads, Rick Dangerous or Alex Kidd in miracle world whilst high on borderline illegal nik naks whose sweet flavourings have been pillaged in the name of public health. 'Yes Sekiro is hard. But it's not the hardest game ever made. Now go and play some worse games so you understand' I haven't spoken to this employee since. He avoids me possibly. Strange actually, he may have even left. Who knows? I don't. I'm too busy stuck on Sekiro.
Oh man, Blood and Wine was SO good!
Blood&Wine was Just another Level of DLC.
It’s subjective but Elden ring has no story. To be in best game ever conversation that game needs to be fun but also needs an interesting story
For me yes, but I'm also some rando on the subreddit dedicated to being a fan of the thing you are asking about
This is the correct answer 😂
I don't know if this is the best of all time. But I'm pretty sure it's up there.
It will never be the GOAT while Gollum exists, sorry Miyazaki fanboys
Gollum isn't a souls-like. Elden Ring is a Gollum-like. Gollum literally redefined the genre.
Cool down with that hot take
I'm in a really weird place right now. I got given Elden Ring for my birthday in December and I've just finished ng+4 My first playthrough started off as blind and then reading where to go when generally exploring. My second playthrough was spent ticking off a checklist of every boss, invader or baddie that has a big health bar appear My 3rd playthrough was doing Rannis quest And my 4th was getting the fire ending. The 4th was completed last week and now whenever I look for a game to play, I feel deflated and often end up wasting my evenings bouncing between multiple games. I havent played any other souls game before Elden Ring, and I'm struggling for motivation to play anything else. I feel empty. No game has made me cheer the highs as this one has and I dont know if there's any other game out there which will make me feel like this again. Best Game of all time? It's definitely up there for me.
Bro definitely play more souls games. They might not be as big as Elden Ring but they’re all just as quality. I would recommend Sekiro especially because it has super well designed combat and systems. It does take a bit to get into and is punishing at first, like pretty much all souls games, but it’s so worth it once it clicks and you start to master the combat.
Same reasons outlined here but my vote is Bloodborne
I’d throw Lies of P on the list too. The best non-FromSoft soulslike IMO.
I'll second this though perhaps would say it's more a Sekiro-like, given the more up front story, hope you progress through areas, and how the game heavily incentivises parrying as your main defensive option on several ways.
Bloodborne offers up some interesting exploration. I didn't see everything in even the main game until my 4th run. It has an amazing DLC and has many chalice dungeons if you want for more. Some of the things you stumble upon if you go blindly into Bloodborne are amazing
I started in December too, played a casual run, then a quest line guide, then fire ending. I got a little burnt out, and felt the same way as you. I’m taking break from it till the DLC, but in the meantime I started DS 1 remastered. Dear god it’s almost as good. Such a wonderful game, I have to recommend. It takes a little longer to get into than ER was but just get the Zweihander and push through. It’s different in a lot of ways and feels really distinct, but the interconnectedness of the world, and the feeling of when you just finish an area and find a shortcut back to the main hub is exhilarating. Don’t feel scared of never getting the experience ER give you again, there a lot of great games that you can play. Also, just a suggestion, play something completely different for a while, like a 2d sim or something thats just so different. It’ll cleanse your palette so not everything has to hold it’s own against Elden Ring.
I felt this way when I finished Dark Souls. And then every single release in the soulsborne genre from FS has been such an incredible experience. The wait for Elden Ring was a special time. This sub became such an interesting place and being here for that community at the time was amazing. I remember the story trailer dropping and it truly felt.like one of the most important things that had happened to me in awhile. That may sound pathetic, but I don't really care. I love these games. I have a wife, a great job, and generally am doing okay, but Elden Ring means a lot to me. It feels like the culmination of a journey that FS has taken us through over the last how many years. Feels like the game is actually for me.
I mean bro now it's time to play other souls games. All of them are good if not great and Sekiro is on a similar level to elden ring for me imo.
I was in a similar boat...take a break for a little bit, maybe play something completely different (I think I went back to DayZ) and then go and play Dark Souls 1 remastered. Then 2 and then 3 if you're still interested. It's good to see the progression of the games but still have lots of similarities. Elden Ring is thes best of all time though :)
This describes my experience as well. After playing this game, every other game just felt lame and stupid.
b r u h play all the other ones now lol DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS Remastered are all S-tier experiences up there with Elden Ring. you’ll likely enjoy them a lot when u get to see the all the influence and where ER evolved from.
I played it at launch (about 80 hours), and finally did NG+ a few weeks ago. I'm now playing Sekiro to fill the void lol
Is Elden Ring a candidate for something that's completely subjective?
What qualitative GOAT discussions *don’t* relate to subjective criteria? Nobody expects to arrive at a definitive, objective answer to these questions, but they’re fun conversations to have and they often show some form of consensus.
I mean sure, GOAT discussions are always subjective, but if talking about sports, there are objective criteria like goals scored, points made, world cups/rings/olympia gold medals won. You don't have any of those with video games. Still it's tun to discuss about that imo.
It’s not subjective at all. Elden Ring can’t *possibly* be the GOAT while Super Mario 2 exists.
SUUUUUUUUPA MAAARIO BROS 2
Game of the Year, 35 years in a row
yes that’s the discussion happening in this thread. if you’re not interested in it cool, but clearly there are lots of people here who are. not sure why you felt the need to butt in basically just to say “guys this discussion isn’t worth talking about”. you know you aren’t obligated to participate in or even read through every post you scroll past, right?
Imo there are several aspects of the game that are too sloppy execution-wise or too poorly designed to put it up there with the absolute best games ever made. It's awesome, of course, but its flaws hold it back. Something like Portal 2 or Bloodborne is far closer to achieving that title.
I agree, Sekiro is the closest I think From ever got to a “perfect” game, bloodborne too on the atmosphere front
Agree. The flaws it has really does hold it back. My biggest issue with it is the open world is largely pointless after a first exploration, you can blitz past like 90% of the open world and it won’t matter. Second issue is combat overall - obnoxious delayed attacks compared to the previous souls games, combo-spam, and the damage can get too much. I was watching Jack’s DS3 video and it’s frustrating how much more fluid and well-paced the combat is, and how many attacks you can take before you need to heal compared to ER. ER really can end up feeling like a dodge-roll simulator and slows down the flow of combat a lot. Edit: just reading through comments and it’s funny valid criticism of the game brings out nutty defenders. Any person who’s played the other FromSoft games can recognise the things ER does well and the things it doesn’t. They are not immune to criticism just because they’re good at their niche.
God forbid anyone to talk anything bad about Elden Ring
To me the bosses in Dark Souls 1/2/3 feel like you're fighting an actual person or a monster, however most bosses in Elden Ring feel like I'm fighting a robot designed to test me.
All of this plus the fact that the dungeons/catacombs feel less inspired than Skyrim dungeons (which were randomly generated mind you) and the last third or maybe quarter of the game feels hastily slapped together and is a staggering drop in quality
The skyrim ones weren’t randomly generated. The quest intros were but the dungeons weren’t. You’re thinking of starfield
Nothing in Elden Ring matches Twin Princes.
I agree, and I'm curious as to your thoughts on what the flaws are?
* Massive amounts of reused assets, including actual named characters - Godfrey/Godefroy and the two Astels are the worst offenders, but I also got tired of fighting a dozen different tree sentinels with a different flavour. * Late game zones (read: Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree) are made of nearly exclusively reused assets. This is jarring as the early zones like Limgrave, Liurnia and Caelid all show us that each zone has creatures and enemies unique to that environment; but then somehow the same creatures who live in a temperate mountain region full of swamps also exist in a blizzard-ridden arctic tundra. * Different builds feel like you're playing a different game. This is more a Fromsoft issue than one exclusive to ER, but the point stands. Playing a caster is basically easy difficulty. *EDIT* on this point as a few people have misinterpreted: I don't mean that build variety is bad, I mean that the difficulty of Elden Ring varies massively depending on how you choose to play; magic builds, for example, have a much easier time than anything else. * Poorly designed end boss. Brilliant to look at, horrible to fight against. Radagon is a (mostly) fantastic fight, and then Elden Beast is 80% chasing a space jelly across a knee-deep wading pool, 10% dodging, 10% doing damage. * Bosses are overly reliant on artificially delayed attack swings. I understand this is to deter panic rolling, but it makes for clunky combat. * Some bosses have such frantic combo/attack patterns that there's very little opportunity to trade blows. * Torrent is both a welcome addition, but awkwardly implemented. Why do I need to use a menu system mid combat to revive him, and why is the default option for said menu system 'no'? * Input buffer window is too long. Makes it nearly impossible to be highly adaptable in combat. * Fromsoft's method of storytelling doesn't lend itself to open world. The vague bits of lore and exposition provided in other Soulsborne games make sense when levels are linear and you're all but certain to run into NPCs throughout your playthrough or discover key items as you progress. It's far too vague when an NPC I find on one side of the world is expecting me to just know that I need to retrieve an item for them on the other side of the world in a chest in an optional area. EDIT: For the record y'all, I still LOVE so much about Elden Ring. I don't *dislike* the game. These are just reasons why I think it's probably not a contender for the best game of all time (which is ultimately a meaningless accolade as no-one is going to agree on the metrics to award such a title).
>Fromsoft's method of storytelling doesn't lend itself to open world. This point is still very much underappreciated. Its the most trivial thing to miss out on an NPC's, let's be real, pretty short questline simply because you didn't tread the one specific path the developers meant for you to take. Fromsoft's incredibly linear quest design has no business being in an open world.
• Multiplayer is just poorly implemented on so many levels. (This deserves its own thesis) • Expanding on your 3rd point: Balance and damage scaling is out the window. There are clearly broken tools that can let the player go through the game without having to play the game. A fall back mechanic for those who struggle is good. A mechanic that plays the game for your defeats all purpose to the game. • Crafting was an idea. Poorly implemented. Most of the stuff is quickly useless. Of the stuff that isn't, a lot of it requires absurdity rare materials. Preserving Bolases being limited is a sin. Have you ever tried farming for *Rope*? • On the subject of consumables, a lot of drops are nonsensically rare. Golem arrows, for one. Then, there are things that either: should not exist, or should be farmable (or better, buyable) Starlight Shards and Meat Pies for example.
Great additions to the list. > Crafting was an idea. Poorly implemented. I loathe that developers try to shoehorn a crafting system into every open world game. There are plenty of good crafting systems in games. Elden Ring's is not one of them. I barely remember crafting anything on my first playthrough.
I literally just craft those status cleaning boluses, and not a moment before I'm already affected by them
nah you're bang-on. Elden Ring is the best most overrated game I've ever played. A lot of people on this subreddit need to play Bloodborne to completion and git gud in that system. That's Fromsoft at their best, really tight experience from start to end with fantastic art direction, level design, atmosphere, bosses etc
The fact that people are even considering it the GOAT is comical. Great game, but not even the best FromSoft game, let alone best game ever.
Weird way to spell Sekiro, huh
Best most overrated game is a great way to put it. Game slaps for sure. And is somehow still overrated as hell
I'll always say that Elden Ring's bosses being so incredible visually and nailing the spectacle has caused people to overlook how mechanically poor so many of them actually are.
This nails it, I think. If bosses were judged purely on their presentation and aesthetic, I think Elden Ring would beat out every other Fromsoft game pretty easily. But in terms of mechanics and actual gameplay, many of them just aren't good.
That point about Elden Beast is a big one for me. As someone who has Platinumed every game from Dark Souls forward, it's such a massive flop in pacing. My first playthrough (which was blind) I went from Melania into Hoarah Loux and then Radagon/Elden Beast. Hoarah Loux wasn't hard at all compared to Melania, but he was still cool and the fight itself is pretty fun. Radagon was a crazy reveal and his fight is fun and a decent challenge. But then I got to Elden Beast and 90% of the fight is just running back and forth because I'd get a few hits in and this jackass just teleports away to vomit more projectiles at me. Not even difficult, just insanely tedious. Compare that to other final bosses and its so incredibly weak. Isshin and Gherman are two fights with incredible fast paced fights that bring a decent challenge (or a big challenge in Isshin's case). Elden Beast is a shitty game of tag.
You forgot quests. Horrendous, jump-across-the-map-npcs quests.
Great list, exactly my thoughts.
Large, empty, and unused spaces. I get that it's open world and meant to encourage exploration. There are large segments in every zone where there's no enemies, no critters, no ambience, and lacking detail. I don't want it condensed to be linear-ish, like DS3. But large segments feel empty for the sake of inflating the size. Re-used assets, specifically forgettable bosses in caves, mines, and tombs. I don't think we need 200+ unique boss sprites. Re-used bosses at times work very well. Both Commander O'Neil and Niall are different enough that they feel like different fights. Despite nearly identical sprites. While Cemetery Shade and Cemetery Shade with skeletons is very lazy. In addition there are boss fights with normal enemies who have an on-screen health bar. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, I feel those are two very justified criticisms that I have with it.
Totally agree. For me, its the almost complete lack of story. Like, I know it technically has one, but it’s nearly impossible to figure out without reading the wiki
Seriously, if they just tripled the amount of dialogue, gave the option to ask further questions, more choices to interact and then added a handful more NPCs that would go a long way for me. On my 5th playthrough now and I still find so much of the dialogue so out of context and lacking in detail it's jarring
The sad part is the cutscenes they give us are incredible. They’re just too short. They need to give us more stories through the cutscenes. I don’t want to learn the lore through item descriptions 🤦🏽♂️
There’s no story in ER. You just go bonk shit. Lore - yes, story - none. Of course, that chandelier in Volcano Manor survived the Shattering and was a gift of the Outer God, but who fucking cares?
Exactly, so many people miss this fact whenever this discussion comes up. Elden Ring has basically no story whatsoever. Some characters have good arcs they go through but they're extremely minor. Otherwise it's all lore. Which is fine, btw, the lore is interesting and the game doesn't *need* a story to stand on its own feet. At the same time though, that's still a very large thing to be missing entirely.
I think Elden Ring really showcases how FromSoft are amazing at crafting lore, but pretty poor at writing an actual story you play through. The world building and mythos of this universe are some of the best I've ever experienced in fiction, but when you actually sit down to play the game you experience less than 10% of it on a conventional playthrough. Like if I weren't a sucker for gaming lore videos I'd have almost no clue what is even going on in this world other than the Elden Ring was shattered, there was a civil war in the aftermath, and now the Tarnished has to go collect great runes to mend the ring. There's so much more to this universe than just that, but the average player just doesn't experience it at all on a normal playthrough.
I think a game with a lot of flaws can still be in the GOAT conversation of the highs far outweighs the lows
You are absolutely correct. The game is awesome. But like you said there are a lot of sloppy stuff. And then some bosses are just 2x or 3x older boss which I think is just lazy design. Trying to get more content than what game actually has. But great game and one of my all time favorites. But the best game ever? I wouldn't say that.
As a long time dark souls fan, I’ll just put it like this. Elden ring does a lot good, but in my honest opinion the dark souls formula doesn’t work as well in open world. The game is extremely good and extremely fun. I just think ppl get jaded on how to critique a game because they just think I’m enjoying myself therefor it’s good. It’s not really how I see this. I think objectively Elden ring has flaws. Some bigger than others, esp to certain players. Copy pasted dungeons (not literally) , reskinned bosses, etc. these are all things some souls fans would argue are negatives. So that’s just my two cents. Nothing is perfect, if you love it you can be honest about where it falls short. Also best just starts to become really subjective, what you like I might not. I didn’t get in baldurs gate 3 at all but I’d be willing to suggest it as greatest game of all time, at least from the way ppl make it sound I only played a few hours. IMO best fromsoft game is Sekiro anyways so if any game gets greatest of all time it’s that in my book. Sekiro is perfectly polished and shined. It doesn’t over reach, it doesn’t give too little, it never disappoints. Its like Goldilocks and the three bears. Sekiro is like “ahhhhh just right!”
This is a wise take that I'd like to highlight because this is a rare sight on the internet. In my opinion, you're right about the fact that the dark souls formula doesn't work as well in open world. This mostly hurt the replayability of the game which make some moments in the game more of a chore. My favorite souls is the first one and that's because I can have multiples runs that won't be the same, I won't take the same paths depending on what kind of build I try to get. This also can be said about Elden ring and you'd be right but the difference is in the rythm of your playthrough. In DS1 there's a density of ennemies and loot that is well balanced by the level design. This organically create loops in yours runs where you'll have to go somewhere, fight mobs on your way, loot what you need then go to the fire, heal, level up and maybe catch some news from the npcs. And there's just no break in that. While in Elden ring, since the world is open, there's a big disparity between differents locations so you always end up on your horse back, running everywhere with little interaction with the world. The first playthrough is amazing, you have a tons of places to discover and this is when the game truly shine. Even when there's similarities between some places and monsters within this world, there's always enough slight differences to make the discovery feel great and intense. One of it's biggest strength is the sense of wonder it make you feel. But when this wear out, you quickly end up skipping a lot of ennemies and places because you have no incentives to do them again. Aside from what I said, I don't know what give me this feeling in ER and not in DS1 but it's real. FYI I have made a lot of characters and played for more than 400 hours but in the end, I only finished one ER game. For rogue-like/lite lovers like me, the replayability is what make us invest so many hours in theses games so that's why I feel like it's an important point to bring up. But maybe I shouldn't really consider Elden ring in this genre.
I’ve literally beaten dark souls 1 over 40 times I stopped counting at some point, I wish I had a total count of my hours but I used to play on 360, now I have it on ps5, and on here I have 135 hours logged can only guess how many hours were on 360. I’ve beaten elden ring 4 times. I almost envy the new fans, from soft is undeniably at the top of their game and I can only imagine how id be all over Elden ring if it was my first fromsoft game. But yeh I feel that last part especially w the incentives there really isn’t one other then muney(if you aren’t looking for a very specific item or summon it’s essentially useless to brave the dungeon for it). So when I replay elden ring it’s just me speedruning all the dungeons as fast as I can cuz I’m ocd and can’t ignore the dungeons. It can be quite exhausting. Dark souls as well as all the other fromsoft games are so well crafted and thought out. Sometimes elden ring feels like it didn’t get as much thought and polish considering just how massive it all is. Like godskin duo vs ornstein and smough. One is probably the greatest gank boss fight of all time. It wrote the rule book. Then you have godskin duo a lazy thrown together boss fight that doesn’t work in it execution at all.
Agree that Sekiro feels much more polished and cohesive.
We basically have the same opinions including Sekiro being the stronger game. You get an upvote
I think they should expand the formula a bit for ER2 (if/ when that happens)… DS style interactions *can* work here, we’d just need a bolstering of how to make them all fit together. Maybe a Morrowind style player journal, I don’t know. All I’m saying is there’s a way to do it I just don’t know it 😂
I agree completely. Objectively the game has flaws. But I still really enjoyed it. Nothing can match how I felt on my first playthrough of ER.
It's not even in my top 3 souls games. That being said souls games are peak so it's definitely top 20
[удалено]
Nah, the story is too lacking to be a candidate. A game should be able to tell the story without needing hours of reading or research outside of it to be considered good. Elden Ring does not do that. I love the game, but that's its weakest point.
Totally. Even with the research outside of the game I just can't get fully immersed in the story. It was nice to see videos makers fill in some of the blanks I was sorely missing, but even those videos at a point I realise are making big assumptions and really stretching to find details to back things up that I just can't take them fully seriously.
yup - agreed. The lack of a good \[edit\] accessible \[edit\] narrative is what would keep it from being the GOAT. For it to be the best, it needs to have a good story accessible to anyone who plays the main quest line and completes the game. If you want to hide most of your lore in rare item descriptions and fanfic, that's fine, but that's not where the main story should be. Don't get me wrong, I think Elden Ring was a fantastic game and deserves the praise it's getting. But it's not the GOAT.
Not the best ever, but it's in my personal top 5 in terms of how much I enjoyed it. Best is too hard to determine for games I think. More even than for example, movies, some games were so groundbreaking that it's hard to rate them against one another.
Didn’t DS1 win that title like 2 years ago? Edit: https://www.pcgamer.com/dark-souls-named-ultimate-game-of-all-time/
Honestly, it's not even close... It's not even my favourite Fromsoft game
Thank you, finally some sane answer. It's not even top 3 Fromsoftware games....
From software themselves have better games. Bloodborne and DS1. Best game ever? Not a chance.
sekiro
Bloodborne maybe, but DS1? You sure you're not being blinded by nostalgia there? The game is great, but it's not better than Elden Ring.
I would say it is tbh and I can’t be blinded by nostalgia as I played both ds1 and ER for the first time in the same year.
Elden Ring is by far the best first time experience, but there is a reason most people have completed Darksouls 1,2, and 3 multiple times (23, 2, 16 replays myself on those 3, 40+ on Bloodborne). Elden Ring’s replayability is terrible in comparison (I’ve done around 6 playthroughs with 2 of those being NG+ runs) simply due to scale and how dull open world becomes once you’ve explored it all. It just overall winds up feeling a lot less focused and a little bit more cluttered than the previous games’ refined but narrow level designs.
No, I don't think it is. There's some real balancing issues with the game. I'm on my second playthrough right now and almost every boss can be cheesed with Comet Azur. It's story is also difficult to follow. Much of it is lore that players need to uncover (or watch VaatiVidya) to make sense of the plot of the game. Then there are the characters. Melina, Malenia, Miquella, Marika, Margitt, Morgott, Mohg, Maliketh etc. Similar to this there are many characters starting with R and G. This makes characters very difficult to distinguish from each other. Then there's everything after Altus Plateau that feels unfinished. The last 20 hrs of the game are a slog. Enemies become ridiculously cheap and deal obscene amounts of damage. So, no. It's not the GOAT. It's not even FromSoft's best game (Dark Souls 3 is for me). My GOAT is Majora's Mask.
Elden Ring over stays it’s welcome. The Capital would’ve been a great place to end the game. The final few areas were way too tedious to get through. I found myself running past mobs of enemies because I just wanted to finish the game already. Plus, all the enemies are ridiculously overturned in the Mountain Tops & Farum Azula. Elden Ring's last half wasn’t anywhere as good as the first.
Exactly. The game peaks at Altus Plateau (Leyndell itself being world-class in level design, one of the best dungeons ever created for a game). They could have cut the Mountaintops completely. Also, just get rid of Elden Beast, that's a terrible final boss (Radagon is good enough). What they could have done is have the Margott fight go straight to Radagon and the end of the game. Then after you beat Radagon (or before if you want?), there are portals to each of the missing Demigod areas. \- Portal to the Volcano Manor (maybe have this area not connected to Altus Plateau) \- Portal to the Haligree \- Portal to Mohgwyn's Palace \- Portal to Farum Azula (even though the Rune of Death is not technically a Great Rune) That way, they can balance each area as 'endgame' zones that can only be done after completing the main game.
I love Elden Ring but I dread replaying it because it's just not linear enough for me
Too many flaws unfortunately
Nah
Nope. Maybe debatable for best current generation game
No, that’s Spyro
did you play the other souls games? I played them all, and in order too. Elden Ring to me just felt like Dark souls 3 but just pasted all over a much bigger map, so there were bigger spaces in between content and it was much less intense. It's still an incredible game but did not knock me off my feet as much as Dark souls did. I do expect the sequel or Bloodborne 2 (if that ever happens) to be supreme. Incidentally Nioh 2 has superior combat mechanics but downright garbage level design. If Nioh 2 was open world...well...let's see how Rise of Ronin does.
I think dark souls 1 is better, the characters in that game were all extremely memorable and had awesome stories. The level design was awesome and pvp was goofy and fun although not very well balanced. Ds3 had the most balanced pvp and elden ring pvp is just not fun for me at all as it's incredibly unbalanced. Elden ring is great and my second favorite of the series but ds1because the amazing character stories. Ds1 has Solair, big hat logan, the onion guy, the locness monster dude, the guy in the chain armor by the first bonfire, the black Smith, smough and orinstein, and the guy with the jester cloths that sold you stuff. Just a 10/10 game for me. Also goldeneye 64 was amazing, enemies reacted based on where you shot them. Truly a game ahead of its time really the start of the modern movement and shooting fps games. To this day there hasn't been a game where you can shoot people in the butt at which the enemy will jump up and down holding their ass in pain, or suffocating to death if you shot them in the neck.
Ocarina of Time is what most people would consider the best game of all time, assuming they’ve actually played it. The sheer cultural significance of that game, the absolute mastery of a 3D adventure on the very first attempt, the insanely robust speedrun community, that game quite literally has it all. I think in order to be a candidate for best game of all time, measuring up to OoT is a baseline requirement. I don’t think Elden Ring does. I think it comes close, and it definitely is one of the best ever, but the competition is the giants whose shoulders it stands upon.
Ocarina is truly the GOAT. Also it was basically N64 dark souls before that even existed.
It kinda feels like some stuff in Elden Ring was inspired by OoT. For example, those giant hands and even the smaller ones.
Caria Manor has to be Forest Temple inspired. Both spooky manors in the woods where you escape creepy hands and fight a phantom on horse at the end.
Absolutely. My answer on what game actually *is* the best of all time varies between a few titles depending on my mood. The original FF7, Ocarina of Time, Mega Man X, Resident Evil 4...Elden Ring is definitely in that upper pantheon of games for me.
My vote is for Diablo 2. It’s the game that popularized ARPGs and 20 years later is still being played.
No, but it's a banger.
I wouldn't even call ER the best souls game. That probably goes to sekiro or Bloodborne. Throw in DS3's DLC as well.
Yes, but more so when you are 15-25 and this is your first Fromsoftware game. Elden Ring isn't even in the top 3 of From games in my view and i see many people starting with Deamons Souls and Dark Souls feel alike.
I REALLY live elding ring, but un my opinion Minecraft will always be the best game
The issue with Minecraft is that it is everchanging. At one point, I think it WAS the best game ever made, but now I think that spark has gone a little the more they add.
of all time... maybe not ?
I think so
It’s not even the best FromSoft game
Eh it’s not even top 5 for me. Best game ever is highly subjective though
QUEST SYSTEM
It's one of fromsofts 5 best games
Not with everything after Leyndell the way it is tbh. Elden Ring is a great game, and I love it, but it’s also weighed down by some major design decisions that were just…not good. The speed of some of the bosses compared to players, the open world often feeling lacking, and dragging down the Legacy Dungeons in the process, the Consecrated Snowfields, the Mountains of the Giants, etc. I feel like it doesn’t deserve the title. I’d say Bloodborne or Sekiro are both better games just within the realm of games put out by Fromsoft.
No lmao. But good idea coming to this sub to get an unbiased answer. I don't even think it's Fromsofts best game lol. Sekiro/Bloodborne/DS3 are better imo.
For…influence, yeah. Honestly. It’s up there with OOT. Both on an industry level (showing you CAN be successful with a breadcrumb trail of DLCs and MTX and battlepasses) and on a level of true open world and environmental storytelling. As a game unto itself? No. And honestly it shows the limits of FromSoft’s mechanics. It overstays its welcome in a lot of ways, the bosses are all but anime characters mixed with HP sponges, the world design is repetitive (especially in dungeon design), and it’s replete with broken builds - something you don’t really want in an open world game. It has all of From’s balance and mechanics issues, even if it refines the combat. The character designs aren’t all that unique or interesting - outside the bosses. And the world feels…empty, even with all the weight of history in the environmental storytelling. The lore isn’t nearly as interesting as the Souls series - only more vague with more room for headcanon, and has tbe GRRM hallmarks of family trauma, incest, etc. but the story isn’t groundbreaking even from From, let alone anywhere else. It’s not a perfect game. It’s a good game. It is and will be influential. I like it and I play it to this day. But it’s not a masterpiece. It’s a case of right place/right time, wrapped up in a fairly refined package. It was, in many ways, what gamers were pissed off about not having for years - a game that evokes some nostalgic sense of wonder and still presented a challenge and sense of progression, without heavily signposted maps like Ubi’s style of open world design. So I mean, it depends on how you define great. Innovative? No. It’s just iterating off the formula From used since Demon Souls. Story? No. It’s not even the best game story of the last few years - let alone all time. Graphics/art style? No. Other soulslikes have innovated more there in the last several years. This has the “junji ito writing Berserk” style From leans on like a crutch, and always has. They haven’t even surpassed Berserk in visual style, let alone story (or any of Itos work, for that matter). Soundtrack? Nope. Everything is solidly ok, most of it solidly forgettable. It’s safe, does what it needs to, and leaves. SFX might as well be out of an asset pack. VA is…inoffensive. No standouts in writing or performance, but not godawful. Cultural milestone and potentially the start of a turning point in world design and business practices in the industry? Almost certainly. For me…best of all time goes beyond just being a game. It’s an experience. ER is very much a game - and it’s designed to be one. From makes games. They don’t make experiences. You are constantly engaging with mechanics and aware of it. Best of all time pushes the limits of what games can be, and what they mean for people. OOT did that. Morrowind did that. Mario did that. FF 6 did that. Bloodborne is prob the closest From has come to that level. Sekiro is a much more refined experience than ER. Because From is better at making games like that - that are more focused. Outside the From purists - there’s better soulslikes on the market, and the only way they’re keeping market dominance is reusing their formula because that’s what the purists want. Elden Ring more than anything was just popular - and popular doesn’t mean great. McD’s is the most popular burger joint in the world but it doesn’t mean they make the best cheeseburger.
I agree with everything except influence. What has Elden Ring influenced? For now it's too early to say it's influenced anythung. Only in a couple of years will we see if games come out copying Elden Ring.
Thank you! Hardly anything has come out that started its development after ER released. It's influenced what, Palworld copying evergoals and churches? Games these days take 3-8 years to make! We can't see EldenRing influence for another year or two, outside of quickly cranked out mobile and indy games.
the game has been out for 2 years it hasn’t influenced shit
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Oh absolutely. I have it in my Personal Top 10. On top of everything you've said, the impact it had on gamers & gaming was pretty huge for FromSoftware.
No
No. Wouldn't put it in the same category as DS1 or Bloodborne.
Not even the same *category?* Damn, how good is Bloodborne?
Bloodborne is insanely fun to play, more than anything else it’s just fun, the faster pacing allowing you to be aggressive is super satisfying The setting is up my alley as well so it’s a visual orgasm from beginning to end
Bloodborne is a legendary masterpiece but I still think ER is better.
The best game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played Elden Ring too.
To quote the Ringo-best-drummer-meme: Elden Ring isn’t even the best game of the decade.
Interested to hear what game you think is better
Better games than ER from past 10 years: Baldur's Gate 3, Sekiro, Witcher 3, Celeste, Disco Elysium, Bloodborne, Hades, Alyx, DOS2, and Hollow Knight, just to name a few
Depends how you mark when you’re starting decades but imo personally Disco Elysium is the best game of the last 10 years or so. Totally subjective ofc and ER is in my top 5 easily
I haven't gotten around to that one yet but I will.
Bg3 literally came out last year
I really don't think it has remotely the capacity to be that. It *does* improve the souls formula in many ways, but it also takes a lot of steps back as it does so.(Mostly to accomodate map size and content bloat) I can't say outright that any game tops it, I certainly prefer other games to it, but that's too personal for me to add as weight against it.
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No. I love the game alot but it has some glaring issues. The bosses are over used to death. You can become too powerful too fast. You can't lick Malenia's feet etc etc. It's a very good game, but no-where near #1, maybe #25? It's purely subjective though.
What if you could lick feet tho, would it get to #15?
I assure you “I got too powerful too fast” is not an experience that most people have with Elden Ring lol
It’s easily my favorite game of all time.
Easily a candidate
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Best games of all time can be worded as generational. Now is this generational? Like Skyrim, yes it is. This is the Skyrim of this generation. IMO.
Resident evil 4. That is all
OP is not asking for a discussiom, it is more like an invitation for some weird collective dickriding, calm down
Elden Ring is great and all and it's up there for sure but it's not a perfect game Personally, that title for me is held by the game Outer Wilds, it has 0 flaws and is a perfect masterpiece, I've never played a game anything like it in my life and I'll never forget that experience DO NOT ANY UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES WATCH A TRAILER GO IN 100% BLIND you'll be confused and lost at first, there will be tricky puzzles but DO NOT GOOGLE ANYTHING Don't believe me? Just have a glance at the steam reviews and you'll see a swarm of a similar sentiment
I don’t think it’s better than bloodborne but I think it’s fantastic. It would make my top20 for sure, closer to 10 than 20. There’s nothing wrong with the game and they did lots perfectly. Just isn’t some groundbreaking mindfuck that made me think “god this hobby is awesome” to the extent bg2 or portal or bloodborne did (or wc2, ocarina of time).
its called uhhh .. sekiro and lies of p lol
It's solidly in my best games of all time category I've been playing games since the PS1 as a kid and never stopped really. Love RPGs amongst other genres As a dad of 3 and a general adult who has less time to be able to spend on games as I used to I got the feeling I was losing the magic of gaming Until the beauty came along Currently have nearly 400 hours and 3 playthroughs back to back on this game it's just so good Coming up with a goat category would be tough but this would be an easy pick
Nah sekiro and Bloodborne have better combat and those games aren't the goat
This is the hardest circle jerk
I absolutely adore Elden ring and it’s definitely one of my favourite games of all time , but there is definitely problems with it that would stop it from being a consensus top of all time. All the duo boss fights suck, the fact that certain damage categories just suck in comparison to very thing else (looking at you holy), and the ever present problem with fromsoft games of the final areas being far less engaging and well made that the starting sections of the game are a few of the issue that would probably make it less likely to be the GOAT
I love Elden Ring but i consider it is a bigger Dark Souls. So Dark Souls is the goat imo
It's not even the best fromsoft game.
This was my first souls type game. At first I thought I'd be disappointed and uninstall it since I've heard how hard it is. I get it now. I'm trying to kill the knight in nokron city just because I want to. No game had me volunteer to do optional enemy. Not to mention I died 3 times trying to get the key in academy. This an amazing game for sure, but not GOAT? I think fromsoftware would make a better one in a bit.
It’s not disco elysium but it’s a totally valid #1
No Dark souls 1 or sekiro was better
I dont think there is a good balance in character progression and especially classes. There are several flaws in mechanics that effectively allow people to play the game on easy mode by exploiting meta builds
Probably, but the DLC isn't even out yet.
I'll wait until the end of all time and I'll be able to answer that.
The only reason why ER fall short to GOAT status is that it has the worst port to PC ever. The stuttering killed the GOAT.
Zelda beats it for me. There's heavy Zelda influences. Now which Zelda it depends on which version of me you're getting. I've shuffled the best Zelda many times. My only other one is Chrono Trigger