As much of a sperg this dude is, I can't help but agree with his Elden Ring video. I did start with DS3 and played each game in reverse order and I have to admit that Demons and DS1 had some traits that I longed for in the recent titles. After playing Elden Ring, this feeling was amplified and because of this, I had to replay the older games to see how they handle level design and enemies/bosses. I got a good grasp to why I didn't enjoy the bosses in ER. They just dragged in ER because of the amount of shitty ganks, delayed gotchas, and input reading that you regularly encounter, which lead them to be practically the same fight all the time. I do miss the more grounded fights in the older games. Hell, Bloodborne wasn't as anime like people claiming it is (at least the main game wasn't that bad, DLC pushes it). I don't blame people cheesing these fights as I would have to if I wasn't a stubborning masochistic bitch. The only reason I didn't use summons/respecting stats because none of the other games I ever felt like I had to. I wanted to keep that tradition and get through with what I got. Before one of you fuckers say it's not like the other souls game, it's literally DS4 but big, you can jump properly, and you have a horse. That's it. Even in DS2 Scholar, my least favorite Souls game, didn't annoy me that much to feel tempted to cheese. Here, I got so bored and annoyed at the boss design that I considered the prospect because the fights all boiled down to the same old shit. Well almost because there's the gank fights. Speaking of those, they were either forgettable or outright awful. I dare to say that DS2 had better gank fights because at least we had something interesting with Ruin Sentinels or a neat gank with Darklurker. Hey, powerstancing is back, the best thing about DS2 but is not as good here so neat I guess. Keep in mind, I did a faith/strength build as I wanted to try something new to the standard bonk build that I usually gravitate towards on a first playthrough. Thank god rot is viable because fuck bloated health bars in the late game. The only bosses I liked were Regal Ancestor Spirit, Renalla, God Devouring Serpent, Dragon Lord, and Rahdan. The rest were the very samey, annoying, or outright bad.
Honestly, the sloppy design that equates to difficulty for the sake of difficultly is what pisses me off about this game. The bosses are the worst examples but this unfortunately bleed into late game areas as well. I do like the exploration and its honestly was the only factor that kept me going to the end. I have to be honest, that open world is the reason why the design of this game is so meh. The late game areas just feel like DS1 second half but somehow worse as DS1 second half was more or less boring but tried to do things different. Like giving areas a gimmick to set them apart and the bosses, while lame, didn't feel completely bullshit (besides Lost Izalith and the shit bosses there). Here, it's both frustrating and boring (like Izalith) where I said fuck the combat, I'm running to the boss. It's novel at first but damn it gets repeative after going through the same catacomb over and over again to get rewards that can be a mixed bag. Mostly meh if I'm being honest. To comment on Demon Souls bosses, it's not about having bosses being slow and easy but having something interesting about them rather than waiting until the boss stops spazing out long chains of combos to get a hit or two and rolling away. Repeating/learning a new string of long winded combos only to stab and roll again for the next 20 or so bosses. Shit gets old really fast and I'm someone who does enjoy some of the standard fast and difficult fights in DS3 and Bloodborne. Fuck I am the autist who does soul level 1/BL4 play throughs so difficulty isn't the problem as long as I am the one causing my deaths because I did something stupid like getting greedy. I do also love the unconventional fights as well because not everything needs to be one-on-one big dudes with big weapons fights. Souls combat is very simplistic not fucking DMC (unless From actually commits to creating an in-depth action game...) and gimmick fights add a lot more then what people give them credit for. Yes Bed of Chaos is ass and yes, Dragon God is boring but then we have good gimmicks like Maiden Astrea or fights that play more traditionally but have an interesting twist like Abyss Watchers. Gimmicks can be good and shouldn't be looked down upon because they aren't "difficult." Only when they are just absolutely shit and spit in the face of good game design. This should be applied to traditional bosses but I guess people don't care as long as it's "hard" and give that adrenalin rush. Spoiler, it's not. It's cheap and the amount of it in Elden Ring leaves me lukewarm for the future of Fromsofts design as new fags and try hard are praising/downplaying the issues in this game.
For the people who adore Elden Ring, I am glad because despite my problems, I do like the game and it is one of the better AAA games to come out in the last 5 years that doesn't have anti-consumer practices like microtrasactions or pandering to SJWs. I'm just going to wait and see what From does next and if they continue to double down on Elden Ring's design (which they likely will because the game did so well financially) then I'm out. The only reason I got into these games was the unique tight world design, interesting enemy/boss design, lore, the grounded world with encounters that had substance and not just flashy shoenen anime comboa, and dicking around with pvp. The way things are going, these traits will likely become more the exception or outright nonexisting./SPOILER]
