I actually really like Ghost of Tsushima. Big fan. At the same time I look at your critiques on things and I agree with them. 33:24 so regarding your point here, I guess I’m not ‘naturally driven to the efficient route.’ I don’t bother with charms and armour buffs and had to start a whole new playthrough to use a base level katana so I can exercise more combos. Because I enjoy the combat, especially the duelling. I enjoy feeling like I’m a director of some film, which I think Ghost of tsushima does well for me. It’s a very personal niche, so it’s not an argument to defend the game. It’s just my personal preference thing. Because I stance switch mod combos, play on lethal+ and duel with the broken armour on, and restart checkpoint if I take damage. Does it sound stupid? Yeah, but I am probably the very 0.001% of the Ghost of Tsushima community that plays for both challenge and theatrics. And I don’t do stealth, like at all. The mandatory stealth parts I totally skip them by moving to easy mode. The game has a great combat system but there’s no push for the player base to really flesh it out. So playing Lethal+ with no health or katana upgrades and duelling Kojiro is ALWAYS a huge challenge, especially when I’m trying to do it stylistically. That’s depressing. What’s worse is that I’ve completed Sekiro, and I didn’t even like it much. The combat for that was too basic, the clash clash clash was fun but then it became, kind of barren. I felt like I wanted to be able to express ‘my style’ in Sekiro even though the game itself requires more skill and thinking. Which it ticks, but personal expression is sacrificed, so it doesn’t come around for me Overall, developers mostly pander to the highest denomination of spoon feed me players. I feel new to all of this because I generally stopped video games during the PS4 era and returned during lockdown (with RDR2). And as much as I appreciate RDR2, shit my whole channel is devoted to that stupid game, it’s a shit game. Mind numbing and for that too I have to turn off every piece of assistance given to me, use PC mods to give any semblance of challenge, and even then nothing can help the fact that the missions are cookie cutter nonsense. So clearly it’s a cultural thing in the industry. It’s like fast food, serves the most people in the easiest, most palatable way, disregarding those of us who want the gourmet stuff. Elden Ring takes my interest recently, as someone who sought the gourmet experience in Sekiro but didn’t really feel it, maybe Elden Ring will. I’ve never been a fan of the FromSoft combat system but a friend of mine who also wasn’t a fan just started and he’s having the time of his life. The same friend who introduced me to Ghost of Tsushima. Seems like the only popular recent game that demands player attention and skill, and hopefully it allows personal theatrical expression enough that it’ll feel good for me too. The only other game I truly enjoyed and continue to play is Sifu, which is like 3 hours long lmao (but realistically 50-100 hours long to fully master). That’s a great game by a small team and I wish they got more attention for it. Anyway I already have Elden since I bought it at launch day, I should give it a genuine go. Maybe this video has broken that reticence for me. Good channel btw, subscribed. Would be cool if you checked out Sifu, especially since the very recent Arenas update which added 100% extra playtime.
Yeah man I totally get that, people approach games in different ways, and if you skipped over a lot of the last gen, then I can totally get why some open world tropes might not affect you the way they do me. Hell I loved open worls games when I first started playing them near the start of last gen, but after every new game kept following the same forumla it got really tiring IMO. Especially with my tastes getting more refined and my interests shifting towards more focused and tighly paced experiences, which is why linear games are my favorite. Though I've been playing Zelda TOTK recently (and liking it wayyyyyy more than Breath of the Wild) and its clear to me that vareity really is one of the biggest things for me with open world games. Im finding I can look past many issues or things I might complain about in other games, if you can simply keep things fresh and have enough new things to see/do throughout the runtime. If you do play Elden Ring, I hope you enjoy it! Its got a few issues but I think the highs were really high and ive replayed it again since making this video lmao. Sifus been on my list and my friend loved it, so I do want to get around to it at some point! Though Sekiro and Dark Souls 3 are actually next on my list after TOTK cuz those are the only other souls games I still havent played lol. Great pfp btw, love that movie lol. Thanks for checkin out my channel and leaving this comment!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! And yeah I agree, some games can offer a lot of value with even just an extra challenge mode. First one that comes to mind was the different challenges in Ape Out's hard mode. I spent a lot more hours in the game just attempting those challenges lol
after that video i appreciate elden ring more, because i never played it (is not my style - yet) and envied its high praise. but its not fair to compare elden ring to the ghost of tsushima in term of enemy variety. elden ring as i know is basically just a fighting game, while ghost tries to be somehow real world of samurai, and you cant really make 100 different enemies to maintain reality. however i am just now playing ghost of tsushima and i agree with a lot that you criticize. theres just too many repetitive stuff and even worse for me is that i cant focus on main story with so many things going on. before i get from 1 point to the other, there is many stuff that distracts me. and then its my problem of wanting to complete sidequests of one area before proceding to the other where main quests are. so on top of loosing focus i get too skilled (levelled up) and many enemies just become too easy. in this regard rdr2 and gta 5 makes much better job of maintaining focus on story. yes they hold your hand very much (which is fine by me, as i prefer linear stories and games) but i never lost focus too much with the side quests. because i dont get feeling that they are repeating too much (except some picking stuff), so i would say that rdr and gta do great job in structuring the missions for open world games.
Not open world related but: I think Sekiro is a another perfect example of “simple” combat made interesting by the enemies. Like all you have is a basic slash attack and a parry (you can’t even change/upgrade your sword) but still all the fights feel totally different cuz how u use them is entirely depended on the enemy your up against.
I'm so excited to finally play Sekiro, that and DS3 are the only souls games I haven't played yet lol. But after I finish the RE4 remake those are the next things im playing.
I'd wrap the problem with why there are players who like the games you chow down so much... It's as simple as "this game is for me"... GoT is a perfect example, the combat is meant to the kind of people who like to insert their own samurai fantasy experience, so if you liked the samurai, the tsushima settings, the combat, the map design, the graphics... Then you'd have no single problem playing all those "repetitive" missions no matter how much they're and you'd be asking for more, I plat GoT on lethal and was going for ng+ if I wasn't going for ac origins, which was another game I plat because because I managed to like almost every element in the game to the point I didn't mind those "repetitive" missions and really asked for more... Before that I played gr wildlands and nearly plat it but it was removed from ps plus extra... This trio is probably the most controversial games and you had people either loving them so much or either hating them to the ground, really nothing in between; and if you analyze the reason why, you'd find that those who hated the games for how repetitive they're actually didn't like the mechanics to start with... In other words, if you didn't like the gameplay mechanics of ghost of tsushima, then you'd find the iteration in the first 30 minutes or so, same goes for origins & wildlands, all you need to do is to like the elements that made the game enough and you won't notice any negativity you could apply... Another example is a game everyone praised except for me, which is ac unity, God you're just a casual loser if you didn't like that game, and for what? It's more repetitive than origins and you can't do "stealth" unless you mass murder half of the enemies in a giving location, and God it takes hours to figure out how to ghost stealth throughout a single mission, and this is tedious, really; but those who like mass killing enemies stylishly, parkour around, wear elegant clothing, enjoying the setting of Napoleonic Paris from the streets to the rooftops are definitely gonna see no problem doing the same thing again and again... This is how things work in the industry and this is why no game is perfect. Also some people live in the philosophy of "I pay X$, I expect myself to spend Y amount of time in the game", other people have the philosophy of "if I like a game then I don't just wanna drop it right after finishing it, I wanna wander in the world in invest my time in it" and this why companies bother making open world games that are as open and "alive" as possible whatever it takes them... So it's really no ones fault, it's just how our psychological brains work. And people just gonna pick what they want no matter how good it is... And God I swear I found people enjoying and milking farcray 6 to the bones and asking for more. In conclusion, not everyone is the same, and if it isn't for you, then don't go for it, unless if it was a franchise that you like and you care for, then it's probably the only justify case because then you already invested your time in it and brought it where it is now with your money and time; otherwise if it was a new id like elden rings & GoT or a franchise you never been in into, then just don't go near it, end of the story... Thank you for the nice video and thanks for whoever reading this comment, I hope you always find nothing but good video games.
Here again. I watched the entire part of The open world discussion you were talking about. I'll agree those are pretty generic open world tropes. Mission and waypoint markers, the pointless fetch quests, and the same design as Ubisoft games. Those are kinda playing it safe. But at least they're not MGSV TPP. You at least have NPCs to interact with in those other open world games and more variety in quests. The world in The Phantom Pain felt empty and sterle. No NPCs to interact with. The Side Ops can be tackled less than five minutes and There's barely a story. This leads into my biggest issue with that game. The game was just rushed. The fallen out between Kojima and Konami really effected this game and it can be felt. The story was so barebone, the only way to learn anything is to collect audio recording tapes. If you thought those other games stories were generic, they at least have a story where you have an idea about what's going on. Phantom Pain doesn't have that. That's why it fails as an Open world. It's probably the worst one I played.
Thank you for the essay, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Now I‘m even more excited to play elden ring on my steam deck when it arrives. I share a lot of your criticism about generic open worlds especially ghost of tsushima. Even in RDR2 I became bournt out and just wanted to finish the story after a while because I felt like there was no point to keep on robbing people or playing poker. I would love to play an open world game where my actions really matter and change the world.
I definitely agree with your assessment of the activities in Red Dead 2 lol. I certainly stopped doing them fairly quickly, especially when the economy is so broken that doing 1 main mission gives you more money than robbing like 4 trains lmaoo. And yea for games that actually let your choices impact things, you gotta look to RPGs or Immersive sims. Some open world RPGs like The Witcher 3 can have solid branching paths but others can fall flat due to over ambition, time constraints, or a lack of focus. Its pretty hard to make something with a massive open space AND have it react to your actions, which is why I prefer the smaller more focused experiences that can more reasonably achieve that agency and reactive world. Immersive sims fit that bill for me, which is why I loved games like Human Revolution, Dishonored (all 3 games) and Prey. And even some that struggle a bit like "The Occupation" are still really interesting to me, because they commit to the freedom/immersive bit to a pretty extreme level lol. But thanks for checkin out the video! Glad you enjoyed it!!
As someone who rarely plays open world games nowadays, elden ring sounds like something I would give a shot, and debating myself which from software game to start with
I think Elden Ring is probably the best to start with, as the open ended design means that its pretty hard to ever really hit a true "Roadblock" like some of the other games. If something is giving you problems, you can just go the other way and come back later. Thats what I ended up doing a few times lol. Also the inclusion of the Spirit summons almost acts as their own little difficulty slider. If you're having trouble, searching for better summons can help a bit. Or the opposite is true where you can stop using them if you want more of a challenge. Besides Elden Ring, I think Bloodborne isn't too hard, but that has a different pace/style to the combat so that will effect people differently. One of my friends found Elden Ring Easier than, wheras I found Bloodborne easier. Id say one of those is probably the best to start with if you're concerned about difficulty, but honestly its hard to go wrong with any (Except DS2 lol) and I'd obviously highly recommend Elden Ring.
I’ve actually played quite a bit of bloodborne up until the cathedral ward and I just kept running into dead end after dead end. I hate it when that kind of thing happens
@@ryanhowe5753 Lol if that happened after the Vicar Amelia fight, then I think I know which part you're talking about, which is a fault of the game for making that section so obtuse lol. But yea I don't think that will really be a problem with Elden Ring. Even when I initially didn't know where the main path wanted me to go, just walking off to find something else was worthwhile for me. And Elden Ring doesn't have any main thing that's that obtuse or confusing, aside from one part of a side quest.
That’s good to hear, I actually don’t mind exploring and figuring out where to go Seriously though, I really enjoyed this video essay, and I hope there’ll be others like it in the near future
I dont like how you can just farm lvls and then come to a boss few hours later and beat him easily. I always thought that souls like games were about hard bosses, learning their movesets and trying over and over again, and not just farming lvls to win. Also I'm not a big fan of the gigantic open world. I always feel like I'm missing something...
I mean, you can spend hours farming in all the other souls games too lol. Hell I mean you can kinda find ways to farm in pretty much any video game that has levels lol. Obviously, I think farming is lame and you miss out on what makes the games special if you dont even attempt to learn the game, but that certainly isn't an Elden Ring specific issue. However, Id argue people are probably more likely to farm in a normal souls-like, due to the linear nature which can occasionally create roadblocks for people, where there is ONLY 1 way forward and they can't get past it. Whereas in Elden Ring, there's so much content everywhere you look, if you ever hit a tough spot, you can literally just turn around and go do something else. Then come back and fight a boss when youre both better at the game, and higher leveled. And you can even bypass several of the main bosses if you wanted to lol, you only need 2 Great Runes to reach the capital, and there are 4 available from the start.
@@chrisrivera7530 This is what I meant. You can skip a boss do something else (you're getting lvls) and then come back to the boss overleveled af. And Elden Ring kind of wants you to do this more than other souls games because it's an open world.
@Tettzz I mean, you dont have to do that? You can always just fight the boss lol. As the famous Doom tweet says: You control the buttons you press. If youre worried about outleveling, but then willingly going out of your way to do that, idk what to say lol. Most of the main bosses I sat there and learned their movesets 🤷♂️ and the only ones I didnt, were because I beat them quickly lol. And also, part of the point that I was making in this video, is that I think Elden Rings content as a whole is mostly extremely high quality. To the point where no matter where you go or what you decide to do, youre going to run into some really cool and interesting things. Is it all perfect and smooth sailing? No, obviously not, but I think theres wayyy more than enough amazing stuff to outway the shortcomings.
Nope it doesn't - it's extremely handholdy compared to other souls games - there is 0 balance here between the enemy difficulty and player level. One area of the caelid is extreme easy and just a few meters away it's extremely hard and endgame -there are tonnes of empty spaces: the entire Caelid, mountaintop of the giants, lake of rot &... - there's enormous amount of copy/paste which the game could've been 10 times better without them Basically everything after lyndel capital city is worthless (except maybe for haligtree and even that area had too much copy/paste in it Also because there is no build balance in the game, the bosses aren't balanced either Also the game is actually full of map markers You can easily find map pieces because they're shown to you and once you unlock the map, you can see the location of every legacy dungeon, every ruins, every mini dungeons and many caves They're just not shown in a traditional way Also elden ring sucks in many aspects that other open worlds may thrive at: torrent sucks, side quests suck, crafting sucks &... Elden ring is another generic open world game but with a fresh coat of paint & The only redeeming qualities are legacy dungeons & maybe combat (which is nothing to brag about but it is definitely better than the witcher 3 or skyrim) Elden ring would've been a wayyy better game if they removed every open-world aspect and just gave you the legacy dungeons to play it as a regular souls game Then again it's even worse than a game like Dark souls 3 because the bosses are trash a lot of the time and build balance is way off Also spirit ashes are the worst hand holdy mechanic in the entire soulsborne games Statues of merika & abundant of sights of grace also ruin any tension during exploration even in dungeons
What about the content in elden Ring repetitive dungeons/ boring quests The best parts are the linear legacy dungeons, there is a sense of exploration but there is nothing worth while to explore it's too big for a team like from software to fill it with interesting content
I mean, not only will I have to disagree, but I will also have to assume you didnt make it to the later parts of the video where I talked about all the things I found that made it worthwhile. Especially compared to every other open world game
Was on the fence about this game but watching this review makes me want to go buy it. ur insta brought me here by the way quality content keep up the great work.
Hell yeah thats awesome! If you do end up checking it out, hope you enjoy. If you havent played a souls game before it might take a bit to get used to the flow/style but obviously I think its worth it. And yea like I said on IG, imma try to get out a lot more content regularly. Thanks for checking it out!
Had to pause the video to write this review. Bro this is top notch reviewing !!!! No BS straight facts ♥ it
Ayye I appreciate that!! Thanks for givin it a watch!
I actually really like Ghost of Tsushima. Big fan. At the same time I look at your critiques on things and I agree with them.
33:24 so regarding your point here, I guess I’m not ‘naturally driven to the efficient route.’ I don’t bother with charms and armour buffs and had to start a whole new playthrough to use a base level katana so I can exercise more combos. Because I enjoy the combat, especially the duelling. I enjoy feeling like I’m a director of some film, which I think Ghost of tsushima does well for me. It’s a very personal niche, so it’s not an argument to defend the game. It’s just my personal preference thing. Because I stance switch mod combos, play on lethal+ and duel with the broken armour on, and restart checkpoint if I take damage.
Does it sound stupid? Yeah, but I am probably the very 0.001% of the Ghost of Tsushima community that plays for both challenge and theatrics. And I don’t do stealth, like at all. The mandatory stealth parts I totally skip them by moving to easy mode. The game has a great combat system but there’s no push for the player base to really flesh it out. So playing Lethal+ with no health or katana upgrades and duelling Kojiro is ALWAYS a huge challenge, especially when I’m trying to do it stylistically.
That’s depressing. What’s worse is that I’ve completed Sekiro, and I didn’t even like it much. The combat for that was too basic, the clash clash clash was fun but then it became, kind of barren. I felt like I wanted to be able to express ‘my style’ in Sekiro even though the game itself requires more skill and thinking. Which it ticks, but personal expression is sacrificed, so it doesn’t come around for me
Overall, developers mostly pander to the highest denomination of spoon feed me players. I feel new to all of this because I generally stopped video games during the PS4 era and returned during lockdown (with RDR2).
And as much as I appreciate RDR2, shit my whole channel is devoted to that stupid game, it’s a shit game. Mind numbing and for that too I have to turn off every piece of assistance given to me, use PC mods to give any semblance of challenge, and even then nothing can help the fact that the missions are cookie cutter nonsense.
So clearly it’s a cultural thing in the industry. It’s like fast food, serves the most people in the easiest, most palatable way, disregarding those of us who want the gourmet stuff.
Elden Ring takes my interest recently, as someone who sought the gourmet experience in Sekiro but didn’t really feel it, maybe Elden Ring will. I’ve never been a fan of the FromSoft combat system but a friend of mine who also wasn’t a fan just started and he’s having the time of his life. The same friend who introduced me to Ghost of Tsushima.
Seems like the only popular recent game that demands player attention and skill, and hopefully it allows personal theatrical expression enough that it’ll feel good for me too. The only other game I truly enjoyed and continue to play is Sifu, which is like 3 hours long lmao (but realistically 50-100 hours long to fully master). That’s a great game by a small team and I wish they got more attention for it.
Anyway I already have Elden since I bought it at launch day, I should give it a genuine go. Maybe this video has broken that reticence for me.
Good channel btw, subscribed. Would be cool if you checked out Sifu, especially since the very recent Arenas update which added 100% extra playtime.
Yeah man I totally get that, people approach games in different ways, and if you skipped over a lot of the last gen, then I can totally get why some open world tropes might not affect you the way they do me. Hell I loved open worls games when I first started playing them near the start of last gen, but after every new game kept following the same forumla it got really tiring IMO. Especially with my tastes getting more refined and my interests shifting towards more focused and tighly paced experiences, which is why linear games are my favorite. Though I've been playing Zelda TOTK recently (and liking it wayyyyyy more than Breath of the Wild) and its clear to me that vareity really is one of the biggest things for me with open world games. Im finding I can look past many issues or things I might complain about in other games, if you can simply keep things fresh and have enough new things to see/do throughout the runtime. If you do play Elden Ring, I hope you enjoy it! Its got a few issues but I think the highs were really high and ive replayed it again since making this video lmao. Sifus been on my list and my friend loved it, so I do want to get around to it at some point! Though Sekiro and Dark Souls 3 are actually next on my list after TOTK cuz those are the only other souls games I still havent played lol.
Great pfp btw, love that movie lol. Thanks for checkin out my channel and leaving this comment!
Subbed, we need more critical game reviewers and I totally agree.
By the way, when you think about it, difficulty IS content.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! And yeah I agree, some games can offer a lot of value with even just an extra challenge mode. First one that comes to mind was the different challenges in Ape Out's hard mode. I spent a lot more hours in the game just attempting those challenges lol
after that video i appreciate elden ring more, because i never played it (is not my style - yet) and envied its high praise. but its not fair to compare elden ring to the ghost of tsushima in term of enemy variety. elden ring as i know is basically just a fighting game, while ghost tries to be somehow real world of samurai, and you cant really make 100 different enemies to maintain reality. however i am just now playing ghost of tsushima and i agree with a lot that you criticize. theres just too many repetitive stuff and even worse for me is that i cant focus on main story with so many things going on. before i get from 1 point to the other, there is many stuff that distracts me. and then its my problem of wanting to complete sidequests of one area before proceding to the other where main quests are. so on top of loosing focus i get too skilled (levelled up) and many enemies just become too easy. in this regard rdr2 and gta 5 makes much better job of maintaining focus on story. yes they hold your hand very much (which is fine by me, as i prefer linear stories and games) but i never lost focus too much with the side quests. because i dont get feeling that they are repeating too much (except some picking stuff), so i would say that rdr and gta do great job in structuring the missions for open world games.
Watched this cause the thumbnail is dope as hell.
Damn thanks dude! This means so much coming from someone who had no idea it was being made beforehand!
Not open world related but:
I think Sekiro is a another perfect example of “simple” combat made interesting by the enemies. Like all you have is a basic slash attack and a parry (you can’t even change/upgrade your sword) but still all the fights feel totally different cuz how u use them is entirely depended on the enemy your up against.
I'm so excited to finally play Sekiro, that and DS3 are the only souls games I haven't played yet lol. But after I finish the RE4 remake those are the next things im playing.
I'd wrap the problem with why there are players who like the games you chow down so much...
It's as simple as "this game is for me"... GoT is a perfect example, the combat is meant to the kind of people who like to insert their own samurai fantasy experience, so if you liked the samurai, the tsushima settings, the combat, the map design, the graphics... Then you'd have no single problem playing all those "repetitive" missions no matter how much they're and you'd be asking for more, I plat GoT on lethal and was going for ng+ if I wasn't going for ac origins, which was another game I plat because because I managed to like almost every element in the game to the point I didn't mind those "repetitive" missions and really asked for more... Before that I played gr wildlands and nearly plat it but it was removed from ps plus extra... This trio is probably the most controversial games and you had people either loving them so much or either hating them to the ground, really nothing in between; and if you analyze the reason why, you'd find that those who hated the games for how repetitive they're actually didn't like the mechanics to start with... In other words, if you didn't like the gameplay mechanics of ghost of tsushima, then you'd find the iteration in the first 30 minutes or so, same goes for origins & wildlands, all you need to do is to like the elements that made the game enough and you won't notice any negativity you could apply... Another example is a game everyone praised except for me, which is ac unity, God you're just a casual loser if you didn't like that game, and for what? It's more repetitive than origins and you can't do "stealth" unless you mass murder half of the enemies in a giving location, and God it takes hours to figure out how to ghost stealth throughout a single mission, and this is tedious, really; but those who like mass killing enemies stylishly, parkour around, wear elegant clothing, enjoying the setting of Napoleonic Paris from the streets to the rooftops are definitely gonna see no problem doing the same thing again and again... This is how things work in the industry and this is why no game is perfect.
Also some people live in the philosophy of "I pay X$, I expect myself to spend Y amount of time in the game", other people have the philosophy of "if I like a game then I don't just wanna drop it right after finishing it, I wanna wander in the world in invest my time in it" and this why companies bother making open world games that are as open and "alive" as possible whatever it takes them... So it's really no ones fault, it's just how our psychological brains work. And people just gonna pick what they want no matter how good it is... And God I swear I found people enjoying and milking farcray 6 to the bones and asking for more.
In conclusion, not everyone is the same, and if it isn't for you, then don't go for it, unless if it was a franchise that you like and you care for, then it's probably the only justify case because then you already invested your time in it and brought it where it is now with your money and time; otherwise if it was a new id like elden rings & GoT or a franchise you never been in into, then just don't go near it, end of the story...
Thank you for the nice video and thanks for whoever reading this comment, I hope you always find nothing but good video games.
BRO IS RIGHT
Here again. I watched the entire part of The open world discussion you were talking about. I'll agree those are pretty generic open world tropes. Mission and waypoint markers, the pointless fetch quests, and the same design as Ubisoft games. Those are kinda playing it safe. But at least they're not MGSV TPP. You at least have NPCs to interact with in those other open world games and more variety in quests. The world in The Phantom Pain felt empty and sterle. No NPCs to interact with. The Side Ops can be tackled less than five minutes and There's barely a story. This leads into my biggest issue with that game. The game was just rushed. The fallen out between Kojima and Konami really effected this game and it can be felt. The story was so barebone, the only way to learn anything is to collect audio recording tapes. If you thought those other games stories were generic, they at least have a story where you have an idea about what's going on. Phantom Pain doesn't have that. That's why it fails as an Open world. It's probably the worst one I played.
I absolutely hated MGSV! That game was horrendous!
@@ryanhowe5753 You and me both.
I can not, for the life of me, understand the praise for that game
Between that and ghost of tsuhsima, I don’t know which is worse
Thank you for the essay, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Now I‘m even more excited to play elden ring on my steam deck when it arrives.
I share a lot of your criticism about generic open worlds especially ghost of tsushima. Even in RDR2 I became bournt out and just wanted to finish the story after a while because I felt like there was no point to keep on robbing people or playing poker.
I would love to play an open world game where my actions really matter and change the world.
I definitely agree with your assessment of the activities in Red Dead 2 lol. I certainly stopped doing them fairly quickly, especially when the economy is so broken that doing 1 main mission gives you more money than robbing like 4 trains lmaoo. And yea for games that actually let your choices impact things, you gotta look to RPGs or Immersive sims. Some open world RPGs like The Witcher 3 can have solid branching paths but others can fall flat due to over ambition, time constraints, or a lack of focus. Its pretty hard to make something with a massive open space AND have it react to your actions, which is why I prefer the smaller more focused experiences that can more reasonably achieve that agency and reactive world. Immersive sims fit that bill for me, which is why I loved games like Human Revolution, Dishonored (all 3 games) and Prey. And even some that struggle a bit like "The Occupation" are still really interesting to me, because they commit to the freedom/immersive bit to a pretty extreme level lol. But thanks for checkin out the video! Glad you enjoyed it!!
I made it to the part from the youtube short. I COMPLETED UA-cam !!
@bothBlenders92 hell yeah 😎👍
Thanks for checkin it out!
Have you played The Witcher 3? Because if you want "variety" in an open-world game, this is like the golden standard.
As someone who rarely plays open world games nowadays, elden ring sounds like something I would give a shot, and debating myself which from software game to start with
I think Elden Ring is probably the best to start with, as the open ended design means that its pretty hard to ever really hit a true "Roadblock" like some of the other games. If something is giving you problems, you can just go the other way and come back later. Thats what I ended up doing a few times lol. Also the inclusion of the Spirit summons almost acts as their own little difficulty slider. If you're having trouble, searching for better summons can help a bit. Or the opposite is true where you can stop using them if you want more of a challenge. Besides Elden Ring, I think Bloodborne isn't too hard, but that has a different pace/style to the combat so that will effect people differently. One of my friends found Elden Ring Easier than, wheras I found Bloodborne easier. Id say one of those is probably the best to start with if you're concerned about difficulty, but honestly its hard to go wrong with any (Except DS2 lol) and I'd obviously highly recommend Elden Ring.
I’ve actually played quite a bit of bloodborne up until the cathedral ward and I just kept running into dead end after dead end. I hate it when that kind of thing happens
@@ryanhowe5753 Lol if that happened after the Vicar Amelia fight, then I think I know which part you're talking about, which is a fault of the game for making that section so obtuse lol. But yea I don't think that will really be a problem with Elden Ring. Even when I initially didn't know where the main path wanted me to go, just walking off to find something else was worthwhile for me. And Elden Ring doesn't have any main thing that's that obtuse or confusing, aside from one part of a side quest.
That’s good to hear, I actually don’t mind exploring and figuring out where to go
Seriously though, I really enjoyed this video essay, and I hope there’ll be others like it in the near future
I’m actually a little more concerned about the length of these games than the nature of their difficulty
10:00 hey man dont lump ark into that mess, its shit, but for its own reasons
I dont like how you can just farm lvls and then come to a boss few hours later and beat him easily. I always thought that souls like games were about hard bosses, learning their movesets and trying over and over again, and not just farming lvls to win. Also I'm not a big fan of the gigantic open world. I always feel like I'm missing something...
I mean, you can spend hours farming in all the other souls games too lol. Hell I mean you can kinda find ways to farm in pretty much any video game that has levels lol. Obviously, I think farming is lame and you miss out on what makes the games special if you dont even attempt to learn the game, but that certainly isn't an Elden Ring specific issue. However, Id argue people are probably more likely to farm in a normal souls-like, due to the linear nature which can occasionally create roadblocks for people, where there is ONLY 1 way forward and they can't get past it. Whereas in Elden Ring, there's so much content everywhere you look, if you ever hit a tough spot, you can literally just turn around and go do something else. Then come back and fight a boss when youre both better at the game, and higher leveled. And you can even bypass several of the main bosses if you wanted to lol, you only need 2 Great Runes to reach the capital, and there are 4 available from the start.
@@chrisrivera7530 This is what I meant. You can skip a boss do something else (you're getting lvls) and then come back to the boss overleveled af. And Elden Ring kind of wants you to do this more than other souls games because it's an open world.
@Tettzz I mean, you dont have to do that? You can always just fight the boss lol. As the famous Doom tweet says: You control the buttons you press. If youre worried about outleveling, but then willingly going out of your way to do that, idk what to say lol. Most of the main bosses I sat there and learned their movesets 🤷♂️ and the only ones I didnt, were because I beat them quickly lol. And also, part of the point that I was making in this video, is that I think Elden Rings content as a whole is mostly extremely high quality. To the point where no matter where you go or what you decide to do, youre going to run into some really cool and interesting things. Is it all perfect and smooth sailing? No, obviously not, but I think theres wayyy more than enough amazing stuff to outway the shortcomings.
ELDEN RING GAME OF THE YEAR !!! AND DLC ANNOUNCEMENT :D
Nope it doesn't
- it's extremely handholdy compared to other souls games
- there is 0 balance here between the enemy difficulty and player level.
One area of the caelid is extreme easy and just a few meters away it's extremely hard and endgame
-there are tonnes of empty spaces: the entire Caelid, mountaintop of the giants, lake of rot &...
- there's enormous amount of copy/paste which the game could've been 10 times better without them
Basically everything after lyndel capital city is worthless (except maybe for haligtree and even that area had too much copy/paste in it
Also because there is no build balance in the game, the bosses aren't balanced either
Also the game is actually full of map markers
You can easily find map pieces because they're shown to you and once you unlock the map, you can see the location of every legacy dungeon, every ruins, every mini dungeons and many caves
They're just not shown in a traditional way
Also elden ring sucks in many aspects that other open worlds may thrive at: torrent sucks, side quests suck, crafting sucks &...
Elden ring is another generic open world game but with a fresh coat of paint
& The only redeeming qualities are legacy dungeons & maybe combat (which is nothing to brag about but it is definitely better than the witcher 3 or skyrim)
Elden ring would've been a wayyy better game if they removed every open-world aspect and just gave you the legacy dungeons to play it as a regular souls game
Then again it's even worse than a game like Dark souls 3 because the bosses are trash a lot of the time and build balance is way off
Also spirit ashes are the worst hand holdy mechanic in the entire soulsborne games
Statues of merika & abundant of sights of grace also ruin any tension during exploration even in dungeons
Dragonbarrow is not Caelid, fool
What about the content in elden Ring repetitive dungeons/ boring quests
The best parts are the linear legacy dungeons, there is a sense of exploration but there is nothing worth while to explore it's too big for a team like from software to fill it with interesting content
I mean, not only will I have to disagree, but I will also have to assume you didnt make it to the later parts of the video where I talked about all the things I found that made it worthwhile. Especially compared to every other open world game
Was on the fence about this game but watching this review makes me want to go buy it. ur insta brought me here by the way quality content keep up the great work.
Hell yeah thats awesome! If you do end up checking it out, hope you enjoy. If you havent played a souls game before it might take a bit to get used to the flow/style but obviously I think its worth it. And yea like I said on IG, imma try to get out a lot more content regularly. Thanks for checking it out!