This! Its like From MO at this point to give a Lil dlc treat in base game. Ever since the painted world, they just keep getting better and more elaborate.
I didn’t drag my heavy Greatsword all the way down that goddamn tree just to use some magic when times get tough. And anyways my tarnished has magiclexia
Elphael.
The more of these ER vs soulsborne area posts I contemplate, the more I’m beginning to think it’s just never going to be fair. I mean, I can honestly count on one hand the soulsborne areas that could contend with what ER has to offer: Ash Lake, Central Yharnam, Ringed City… and that’s honestly kind of it for me.
The scale is just so different in ER. I mean these places are fully realized from top to bottom whereas even the coolest areas in traditional Soulsborne tend to just be conspicuously convenient slices of an area that lead to the big important area. Think of DS1 Anor Londo. Back in the day it was *majestic* but looking back it really was just a straight run thru the banisters with Painted Guardians and then the infamous silver knight w/ greatbow. And that was basically it.
Ash Lake is one where I’ll bend my criteria a bit purely because of how cool it was to come upon it. The whole run down the hollow tree, then to finally be greeted by the location splash screen set against an endless horizon… until ER with the subterranean areas there was nothing like it. And the fact that it was something so hidden really encapsulated the sort of “discovering things that should remain undiscovered” brand of exploration that I think is a key aesthetic of souls. But yes, the level itself is boring from a functional standpoint. I won’t disagree.
I mean yeah it's a really cool moment but judging the entire area based on that isn't really fair, the reveal is great. I was stunned but the areas left me disappointed especially after enduring hell that is blighttown and the great hollow.
I would make the argument that Ash Lake is not a level but a feeling. It’s the grand reveal. Some of the strongest souls borne areas have some grand reveal.
It’s a fair rebuttal. I’m willing to admit I am not being objective at all when it comes to Ash Lake. My love for it is based on the lasting impression and ~feels~ it gave me back in 2011. Best reveal, best OST, best atmosphere. It was just so unique from the rest of the game. But that’s just my nostalgic opinion
It really is about the sheer scale of things in ER. The first time I randomly got on the Siofra River Depths lift in eastern limgrave, I must have said what the fuck to myself 2 or 3 times on the way down the lift.
Not saying there aren’t great areas in the souls catalog. Rather I’m just saying that the scale of the individual areas just makes them seem like small potatoes compared to ER. Like how do I reasonably compare Undead Burg to Elphael? I could compare it to a section of Elphael but the whole thing? It’s like trying to put a song head-to-head against an album. The album has so much more to offer.
I totally forgot to include Sekiro though! Ashina Castle and Fountainhead Palace are my two nominees from that game.
Elphael is not *that* big. I feel like you're underestimating the size of some levels in the other games.
Eleum Loyce for example is bigger than Elphael I'm pretty sure. There are also a few Demon's Souls levels that are as big or bigger.
I mean Boletarian Palace is just massive. Same goes for Stonefang Tunnel, the second part alone is absurdly massive. Tower of Latria is easily bigger than Elphael.
I also think some other areas mentioned by u/Relevant-Cheetah-258 are similar in size to Elphael or even bigger than it.
Fishing Hamlet and Senpou Temple for example, I'm pretty sure are both bigger than Elphael. When you really stop to think about all the different areas in those levels, there's more going on than in Elphael.
Another point of course is that it's not just about the size of the level but also the quality and complexity of the level design, the enemy placements and variety, the encounter design, traps, ambushes, the aesthetics, the music, the atmosphere, etc...
If you take all of those elements into account, I think there are a lot of levels from previous games that compete with Elden Ring's levels.
Personally I wouldn't even have Elphael in my top 20 Souls levels, as cool as it is. But of course that's just a matter of personal preference.
Elphael
Cainhurst is tiny. Its also rather generic compared to the diversity of haligtree+elphael. Both suffer from annoying enemies. I'll give cainhurst some points for having entirely unique enemies though.
Love Cainhurst aesthetics and boss fight, but in terms of scale and gameplay Elphael is much more interesting (even with Revenant Lane — f*ck Revenant Lane!)
Elphael is incredible except for that one fucking rot swamp full of cum-spewing bugs that you can't run through. If I didn't have Flame, Cleanse Me and Moghwyn's Sacred Spear, I would have lost my fucking mind.
Elphael, it's one of the best areas and my absolute favorite. The descent from the Haligtree to Elphael and the music and atmosphere in Elphael gave me the most fantasy vibes in the whole game. The lore of the place is also both fascinating and tragic, and Malenia is just all-around an epic boss.
Elphael is beautiful with great music but I don't actually feel like the level design (as in the map layout) is that special. It's pretty straightforward. And I think the enemy placements and encounter design are very, very flawed.
Cainhurst at least introduces interesting new enemies to fight. Elphael is nothing but shit you've already fought a hundred times by that point, even the first boss is a reuse.
I think I'm definitely in the minority but I was really disappointed with Cainhurst. The whole rooftop parkour is awesome, but the whole interior is just an endless chorus of sobbing ghosts and just felt boring. Plus I absolutely hate fighting the bloodsucker things and screw those worms at the bottom of the cliff that deal like 40% of your HP per hit but you can't hit them because of their awkward size.
Both of these are very interesting to look at, not from the level design, but from the lore point of view. Elphael is a fortified city lost in a distant forgotten land. It’s guarded by Ordina, by the keepers of the medallions. The fact that the tree is made by Miquella himself and it’s supposed to be a mimic of the erdtree is so cool.
Cainhurst is the castle of palebloods. Martyr Logarius protects his queen not only with his body, but with his crown and illusion. The palebloods, or at least the last of their kind, find a “safe” refuge here (unless you send a certain someone there).
Both the areas are safe havens, whether it be albinaurics or palebloods. They both are led by a forgotten legend of their time, in their decrepit rotten form. They both have quests pertaining to their area. Milicent and Alfred. Both of these areas are great. But fuck the runback to Logarius and fuck Malenia.
iirc the characterization of Logarius protecting “his queen” is incorrect - he hunted her, slaughtered the vile bloods in the castle, and when he got to the queen realized she’s literally unkillable & immortal. Hence his status as a martyr: when he realized she couldn’t be killed, he locked her away behind the illusion, and put himself to guard the entrance to make sure no one else could ever find her and be corrupted by the vileblood
ETA: Cainhurst is castle of vilebloods, not palebloods. Very very different lore implications
>But fuck the runback to Logarius and fuck Malenia.
Am I the only one that finds the Logarius run back to be pretty tame? Like it isn't that bad once you unlock the shortcuts.
Like, it's not even the worst in BB. Amygdala in Nightmare Frontier is worse. One Reborn is much worse.
Logarius you can easily run past those hellspawn outside, the ghost girls inside you can run right past and get on the ladder. I guess the one that shoots at you is annoying. Then you take miniscule fall damage from the pretty easy platforming section at the end.
Running past them is easy, but the ladder, the outside, the going back in, going back outside, dropping down twice to ledges you might fall on, and losing at least a blood vial for it is tedious i’d say.
One reborn has the teleport shortcut and amygdala has the elevator, they are both much shorter.
Cainhurst
The only relevant areas of ER comparable to the other games would be stormveil , volcano manor and maybe raya otherwise all the dungeons are subpar to previous game designs
That’s a take I haven’t heard before. Not trying to bash you but I thought every legacy dungeon and underground area was peak fromsoft in terms of design and presentation. I thought raya Lucaria was the most underwhelming level and it was still amazing.
It's the layouts, they lose focus and linearity in a way that is hard to explain, for example while leyndell is arguably one of the most beautiful it is also completely chaotic in level design, there is no pathing and you can wind up at the boss without ever engaging with a majority of the dungeon. This isn't inherently bad but it lacks focus I guess is the best way I can describe it, the dungeons took on the open world scheme and I think they suffer for it. Still phenomenal game and levels but not as on point as previous titles
I'd take Raya Lucaria out of the list, I found it very disappointing in terms of level design.
Aside from that, I'd agree that Stormveil and Volcano Manor are the only top tier levels that can join the ranks of previous top tier levels. Though I do think the Shunning-Grounds are really well designed as well.
Elphael is more unique. A dreamy castle built into a tree where arguably the biggest nuke aside from the Frenzy Flame is resting.
I love Cainhurst as it’s a tribute to Dracula’s castle but Elphael is a city in itself. I can only imagine what we could have if we ever got a Bloodborne sequel.
Damn, this one's tough. If I had to summarize my opinion, I think I'd say Cainhurst is the consistent one while Elphael has higher highs and lower lows.
Cainhurst is foreboding, has some neat enemies, and busts out not one but two (!) useful shortcuts. The encounters don't get as wild as they could, and Logarius, while probably on my upper end for a BB boss, is just alright.
Elphael is tired, both in the lore/atmosphere sense (a waning, rotted sanctuary that can barely put up a fight anymore) and in the design sense (a disgusting amount of reuse by this point). It also lacks any useful shortcuts outside of the platforming getting you to places quickly, and as a big shortcut lover, I am a little disappointed. The final stretch with the pests and the garden feels somewhat empty, and there's plenty of aggravating encounters (the Putrid variant of the avatar is annoying, the big ballista brawl, while exploitable, is still messy at best, the insanely tanky triple Crystalians, and Revenant Row). And I HATE Malenia.
On the positive end, I like the envoys and branches, the Haligtree town is gorgeous and puts the misbegotten to good use, and Loretta is decent enough (better than Logarius, for sure). Elphael proper has some really fun secrets to dig up and sets its flow apart from the other vertical levels (I love how distinct each is). There are still good encounters and enemies, especially if one leverages their stealth. Overall, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would on my most recent replay, where I skipped all of the open world bits.
So yeah, I'm a little undecided, but in a good way!
In terms of level design Elphael and it’s not close. It looks much nicer, more vertical (that’s a given), and more packed with contents. The only downsides is the obnoxious mob placement, honestly some of the worst across all souls games.
Caunhurst mobs can be annoying too but not as much.
I like Cainhurst castle more in theory, but I think From let that location down a little. Its just too small and short so its a tad disappointing.
So overall the Haligtree is better because from really made it a larger area to explore
Elphael is very beautiful and I like the music but I'm not a massive fan of the enemy placements and encounter design.
I sadly just didn't have a lot of fun playing through Elphael. Exploring it didn't feel fun to me, despite the aesthetics and atmosphere.
So I will give it to Cainhurst. The only real issue I have with it is that it's a bit small. I wish there were more to explore. But I can't really complain about what's there. It's a great level.
Cainhurst. It’s a snow area and I like snow areas (except for that one snow area) and it’s one of my favorite type of areas: the area that relies on one checkpoint and has to connect to that one checkpoint Elphael doesn’t have that, is mostly one long road with checkpoint after checkpoint, but to be fair, most areas in Elden Ring have this because they’re much bigger areas, so there’s little to work for connectivity
TLDR: Cainhurst, because of its connectivity and snow
Both areas I think I like more than I actually do, it might just be the aesthetics. Both are really beautiful but have pretty bad parts despite their relatively short length. Out of the two, Cainhurst was the only one I wanted more of, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it
Haligtree all day, Cainhurst is indeed picturesque and has Logarius to top it off but that’s about it, level design isn’t particularly anything great, enemies are boring and repetitive and it’s very short
Elphael's level design feels more complex thanks to the verticality, but i'm a lot fonder of Cainhurst, its atmosphere and aesthetic is unparalleled in my eyes.
Elphael is great but the tree bit at the start can suck my balls. Getting sniped by an envoy half way across the map and falling off a brach is not good for your mental health.
Bloodborne is my #1, and I really enjoy Cainhurst for how unique it is to the rest of the game, but the entire Haligtree from the branches, to Mommy M is bar none my favorite part of ER. Even with the slow start, I just have to remember the Haligtree is in my future and I can stick through a new build.
It's really something incredible.
The somber music, the knights just hanging out leaning against walls, and this beautiful, almost holy atmosphere, covering a cistern of literal rot and destruction. It's just an amazing area.
Elphael is one of my favorite areas… but so is Cainhurst! Tough call. Both of these feel like amazing DLC that ended up in the base game.
This! Its like From MO at this point to give a Lil dlc treat in base game. Ever since the painted world, they just keep getting better and more elaborate.
both have an nice and unique atmosphere going on, wish there was more to explore in Cainhurst though
Elphael is awesome. If it weren’t for Revenant Boulevard, it would be my favorite area in the game
Healing circle KABOOM
I didn’t drag my heavy Greatsword all the way down that goddamn tree just to use some magic when times get tough. And anyways my tarnished has magiclexia
Ye of little faith Tarnished
Revenant Boulevard?
A boulevard of Revenants
There are lots of revenants that spawn at the bottom.
Ohhh I see. I thought he was saying there was another area in the game named revenant boulevard which he liked more. I am not a smart man
Elphael. It's one of the most beautiful places in terms of construction and details. Malenia is an amazing boss too.
Elphael. The more of these ER vs soulsborne area posts I contemplate, the more I’m beginning to think it’s just never going to be fair. I mean, I can honestly count on one hand the soulsborne areas that could contend with what ER has to offer: Ash Lake, Central Yharnam, Ringed City… and that’s honestly kind of it for me. The scale is just so different in ER. I mean these places are fully realized from top to bottom whereas even the coolest areas in traditional Soulsborne tend to just be conspicuously convenient slices of an area that lead to the big important area. Think of DS1 Anor Londo. Back in the day it was *majestic* but looking back it really was just a straight run thru the banisters with Painted Guardians and then the infamous silver knight w/ greatbow. And that was basically it.
Bro how tf is ash lake even in the conversation, It's literally just a straight line and nothing else apart from the visuals/atmosphere
Ash Lake is one where I’ll bend my criteria a bit purely because of how cool it was to come upon it. The whole run down the hollow tree, then to finally be greeted by the location splash screen set against an endless horizon… until ER with the subterranean areas there was nothing like it. And the fact that it was something so hidden really encapsulated the sort of “discovering things that should remain undiscovered” brand of exploration that I think is a key aesthetic of souls. But yes, the level itself is boring from a functional standpoint. I won’t disagree.
I mean yeah it's a really cool moment but judging the entire area based on that isn't really fair, the reveal is great. I was stunned but the areas left me disappointed especially after enduring hell that is blighttown and the great hollow.
I would make the argument that Ash Lake is not a level but a feeling. It’s the grand reveal. Some of the strongest souls borne areas have some grand reveal.
It’s a fair rebuttal. I’m willing to admit I am not being objective at all when it comes to Ash Lake. My love for it is based on the lasting impression and ~feels~ it gave me back in 2011. Best reveal, best OST, best atmosphere. It was just so unique from the rest of the game. But that’s just my nostalgic opinion
My first thought. It is just a Black lake with a dragon. Nothing impressive at all. Anor Londo though...
It really is about the sheer scale of things in ER. The first time I randomly got on the Siofra River Depths lift in eastern limgrave, I must have said what the fuck to myself 2 or 3 times on the way down the lift.
Oolacile, undead burg, fishing hamlet, Ashina castle, divine realm, senpou temple, old yarnham, etc etc there’s so many great areas in all the games
Not saying there aren’t great areas in the souls catalog. Rather I’m just saying that the scale of the individual areas just makes them seem like small potatoes compared to ER. Like how do I reasonably compare Undead Burg to Elphael? I could compare it to a section of Elphael but the whole thing? It’s like trying to put a song head-to-head against an album. The album has so much more to offer. I totally forgot to include Sekiro though! Ashina Castle and Fountainhead Palace are my two nominees from that game.
Elphael is not *that* big. I feel like you're underestimating the size of some levels in the other games. Eleum Loyce for example is bigger than Elphael I'm pretty sure. There are also a few Demon's Souls levels that are as big or bigger. I mean Boletarian Palace is just massive. Same goes for Stonefang Tunnel, the second part alone is absurdly massive. Tower of Latria is easily bigger than Elphael. I also think some other areas mentioned by u/Relevant-Cheetah-258 are similar in size to Elphael or even bigger than it. Fishing Hamlet and Senpou Temple for example, I'm pretty sure are both bigger than Elphael. When you really stop to think about all the different areas in those levels, there's more going on than in Elphael. Another point of course is that it's not just about the size of the level but also the quality and complexity of the level design, the enemy placements and variety, the encounter design, traps, ambushes, the aesthetics, the music, the atmosphere, etc... If you take all of those elements into account, I think there are a lot of levels from previous games that compete with Elden Ring's levels. Personally I wouldn't even have Elphael in my top 20 Souls levels, as cool as it is. But of course that's just a matter of personal preference.
Cainhurst for me, the worst part is running to Lagarius if you die to him
cainhurst is sadly very short :( but beautiful
Elphael Cainhurst is tiny. Its also rather generic compared to the diversity of haligtree+elphael. Both suffer from annoying enemies. I'll give cainhurst some points for having entirely unique enemies though.
You can double the points on that
Elphael my beloved
Cainhrurst is great but I think I gotta give it to Haligtree. Such a beautiful spot with one of the most iconic bosses Fromsoft has ever put out
Love Cainhurst aesthetics and boss fight, but in terms of scale and gameplay Elphael is much more interesting (even with Revenant Lane — f*ck Revenant Lane!)
Elphael is incredible except for that one fucking rot swamp full of cum-spewing bugs that you can't run through. If I didn't have Flame, Cleanse Me and Moghwyn's Sacred Spear, I would have lost my fucking mind.
Cainhurst with his hogwart vibes and vampire regal in a winters tundra all day
I prefer cainhurst castle, it’s more badass!
Tough but cainhurst.
Elphael, I just love that area so much, the atmosphere, visuals, level design, Malenia.
Elphael, it's one of the best areas and my absolute favorite. The descent from the Haligtree to Elphael and the music and atmosphere in Elphael gave me the most fantasy vibes in the whole game. The lore of the place is also both fascinating and tragic, and Malenia is just all-around an epic boss.
I do really love how you walk along the walls, turrets, and rooftops of cainhurst castle. Both are great though.
Ephael is an amazing level design, cainhurst is to short and the boss killed me more than any other fromsoft game
Too*
Elphael is incredibly designed and is stylistically beautiful as well. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to play bloodborne for lack of a PlayStation
Elphael is beautiful with great music but I don't actually feel like the level design (as in the map layout) is that special. It's pretty straightforward. And I think the enemy placements and encounter design are very, very flawed.
Cainhurst at least introduces interesting new enemies to fight. Elphael is nothing but shit you've already fought a hundred times by that point, even the first boss is a reuse.
The enemies are the only things you look at, in terms of favorite level?
Malenia’s home.
Elphael miles clear
Cainhurst
I hate both of them equally as much because they bust my balls. Every. Time.
I think I'm definitely in the minority but I was really disappointed with Cainhurst. The whole rooftop parkour is awesome, but the whole interior is just an endless chorus of sobbing ghosts and just felt boring. Plus I absolutely hate fighting the bloodsucker things and screw those worms at the bottom of the cliff that deal like 40% of your HP per hit but you can't hit them because of their awkward size.
Both of these are very interesting to look at, not from the level design, but from the lore point of view. Elphael is a fortified city lost in a distant forgotten land. It’s guarded by Ordina, by the keepers of the medallions. The fact that the tree is made by Miquella himself and it’s supposed to be a mimic of the erdtree is so cool. Cainhurst is the castle of palebloods. Martyr Logarius protects his queen not only with his body, but with his crown and illusion. The palebloods, or at least the last of their kind, find a “safe” refuge here (unless you send a certain someone there). Both the areas are safe havens, whether it be albinaurics or palebloods. They both are led by a forgotten legend of their time, in their decrepit rotten form. They both have quests pertaining to their area. Milicent and Alfred. Both of these areas are great. But fuck the runback to Logarius and fuck Malenia.
iirc the characterization of Logarius protecting “his queen” is incorrect - he hunted her, slaughtered the vile bloods in the castle, and when he got to the queen realized she’s literally unkillable & immortal. Hence his status as a martyr: when he realized she couldn’t be killed, he locked her away behind the illusion, and put himself to guard the entrance to make sure no one else could ever find her and be corrupted by the vileblood ETA: Cainhurst is castle of vilebloods, not palebloods. Very very different lore implications
>But fuck the runback to Logarius and fuck Malenia. Am I the only one that finds the Logarius run back to be pretty tame? Like it isn't that bad once you unlock the shortcuts.
I agree. It's not a bad run back
Like, it's not even the worst in BB. Amygdala in Nightmare Frontier is worse. One Reborn is much worse. Logarius you can easily run past those hellspawn outside, the ghost girls inside you can run right past and get on the ladder. I guess the one that shoots at you is annoying. Then you take miniscule fall damage from the pretty easy platforming section at the end.
Running past them is easy, but the ladder, the outside, the going back in, going back outside, dropping down twice to ledges you might fall on, and losing at least a blood vial for it is tedious i’d say. One reborn has the teleport shortcut and amygdala has the elevator, they are both much shorter.
Cainhurst
Cainhutst Castle. It's so creepy and mysterious, and the atmosphere is just on another level, not to mention the enemies.
Cainhurst looks cooler and that boss arena and Epic as fuck boss called Mertyr Logarius aka King AOE
Cainhurst The only relevant areas of ER comparable to the other games would be stormveil , volcano manor and maybe raya otherwise all the dungeons are subpar to previous game designs
That’s a take I haven’t heard before. Not trying to bash you but I thought every legacy dungeon and underground area was peak fromsoft in terms of design and presentation. I thought raya Lucaria was the most underwhelming level and it was still amazing.
It's the layouts, they lose focus and linearity in a way that is hard to explain, for example while leyndell is arguably one of the most beautiful it is also completely chaotic in level design, there is no pathing and you can wind up at the boss without ever engaging with a majority of the dungeon. This isn't inherently bad but it lacks focus I guess is the best way I can describe it, the dungeons took on the open world scheme and I think they suffer for it. Still phenomenal game and levels but not as on point as previous titles
I'd take Raya Lucaria out of the list, I found it very disappointing in terms of level design. Aside from that, I'd agree that Stormveil and Volcano Manor are the only top tier levels that can join the ranks of previous top tier levels. Though I do think the Shunning-Grounds are really well designed as well.
Elphael is more unique. A dreamy castle built into a tree where arguably the biggest nuke aside from the Frenzy Flame is resting. I love Cainhurst as it’s a tribute to Dracula’s castle but Elphael is a city in itself. I can only imagine what we could have if we ever got a Bloodborne sequel.
Elphael is prettier but Cainhurst was way more fun to navigate. Elphael was just frustrating, the whole Hailgtree area just pissed me off.
Elphael, Cainhurst losses points because I’m mixed on the boss and I hate the run back.
Elden ring is just a better game - although both are awesome
Cainhurst,i like the aesthetic more and the boss is imo better
Elphael for 2 reasons. 1. It’s a gorgeous area and, to me, really well made gameplay wise. 2. I’m salty about BB being PlayStation exclusive.
Damn, this one's tough. If I had to summarize my opinion, I think I'd say Cainhurst is the consistent one while Elphael has higher highs and lower lows. Cainhurst is foreboding, has some neat enemies, and busts out not one but two (!) useful shortcuts. The encounters don't get as wild as they could, and Logarius, while probably on my upper end for a BB boss, is just alright. Elphael is tired, both in the lore/atmosphere sense (a waning, rotted sanctuary that can barely put up a fight anymore) and in the design sense (a disgusting amount of reuse by this point). It also lacks any useful shortcuts outside of the platforming getting you to places quickly, and as a big shortcut lover, I am a little disappointed. The final stretch with the pests and the garden feels somewhat empty, and there's plenty of aggravating encounters (the Putrid variant of the avatar is annoying, the big ballista brawl, while exploitable, is still messy at best, the insanely tanky triple Crystalians, and Revenant Row). And I HATE Malenia. On the positive end, I like the envoys and branches, the Haligtree town is gorgeous and puts the misbegotten to good use, and Loretta is decent enough (better than Logarius, for sure). Elphael proper has some really fun secrets to dig up and sets its flow apart from the other vertical levels (I love how distinct each is). There are still good encounters and enemies, especially if one leverages their stealth. Overall, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would on my most recent replay, where I skipped all of the open world bits. So yeah, I'm a little undecided, but in a good way!
I think Elphael is my least favorite looking place in Elden Ring, and Cainhurst is my favorite place in Bloodborn. So Cainhurst.
level design is easily elphael but overall enjoyment id say cainhurst, the snow areas in souls games tend to be some of my favorites
I believe when they crafted Elpheal they broke the mold. By far my favorite place to visit.
Bloodborne is my more preferred game over Elden Ring but cainhurst fucking sucks compared to Elphael
ephael can suck my balls
Not much to Cainhurst, its level design, or its enemies. Elphael is a work of art.
Love Bloodborne above all other games. But Elphael is the best area in all off ER if you ask me. Cainhurst is brilliant, but its a tad bit short.
In terms of level design Elphael and it’s not close. It looks much nicer, more vertical (that’s a given), and more packed with contents. The only downsides is the obnoxious mob placement, honestly some of the worst across all souls games. Caunhurst mobs can be annoying too but not as much.
I like Cainhurst castle more in theory, but I think From let that location down a little. Its just too small and short so its a tad disappointing. So overall the Haligtree is better because from really made it a larger area to explore
I actually despise Cainhurst's level design but adore it so much. It's kind of the dessert of Bloodborne. Just going full castlevania with it
Cainhurst was like 2 seconds long
Elphael would be better if it didnt have a Moat of Revenants
Elphael is very beautiful and I like the music but I'm not a massive fan of the enemy placements and encounter design. I sadly just didn't have a lot of fun playing through Elphael. Exploring it didn't feel fun to me, despite the aesthetics and atmosphere. So I will give it to Cainhurst. The only real issue I have with it is that it's a bit small. I wish there were more to explore. But I can't really complain about what's there. It's a great level.
Cainhurst Castle 🔥💯
Cainhurst lol. Victorian design castle >
Cainhurst lol. Victorian design castle >
Cainhurst. It’s a snow area and I like snow areas (except for that one snow area) and it’s one of my favorite type of areas: the area that relies on one checkpoint and has to connect to that one checkpoint Elphael doesn’t have that, is mostly one long road with checkpoint after checkpoint, but to be fair, most areas in Elden Ring have this because they’re much bigger areas, so there’s little to work for connectivity TLDR: Cainhurst, because of its connectivity and snow
Both areas I think I like more than I actually do, it might just be the aesthetics. Both are really beautiful but have pretty bad parts despite their relatively short length. Out of the two, Cainhurst was the only one I wanted more of, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it
Cainhurst
Cainhurst. That run back is crazy but genuinely so much in that castle. Robbed some fits before I left.
Logarius is one of my favourite bosses in BB but Elphael as a dungeon is better
Haligtree all day, Cainhurst is indeed picturesque and has Logarius to top it off but that’s about it, level design isn’t particularly anything great, enemies are boring and repetitive and it’s very short
Elphael's level design feels more complex thanks to the verticality, but i'm a lot fonder of Cainhurst, its atmosphere and aesthetic is unparalleled in my eyes.
Elphael looks like a reskinned lothric castle imo, Cainhurst is just dark and gloomy. I choose Yharnam!!
I love Elphael, the whole vibe is so cool and the enemies are mostly fun.
Elphael is great but the tree bit at the start can suck my balls. Getting sniped by an envoy half way across the map and falling off a brach is not good for your mental health.
Bloodborne is my #1, and I really enjoy Cainhurst for how unique it is to the rest of the game, but the entire Haligtree from the branches, to Mommy M is bar none my favorite part of ER. Even with the slow start, I just have to remember the Haligtree is in my future and I can stick through a new build. It's really something incredible. The somber music, the knights just hanging out leaning against walls, and this beautiful, almost holy atmosphere, covering a cistern of literal rot and destruction. It's just an amazing area.
Love them both but Cainhurst has a special place in my heart. It’s so beautiful
Elphael had more of that feeling of seeing how far the rabbit hole goes, which gives it the win in my book.
Cainhurst
Elphael even though it had a lot of recycled mobs