Since I introduced the BRIEF a few years ago, I've offered such entries on a couple dozen games. Before the BRIEF, my practice had been to dismiss them at the bottoms of regular entries, or in the comments on the master list. I decided I wanted to offer at least some documentation on games that were sort of RPGs, or that actually were RPGs but I couldn't get past a technical obstacle.
BRIEFs may be brief, but they are full articles. Occasionally I come across a game that doesn't even require a BRIEF--or, to look at it another way, a game for which I want to say so little that I can't bring myself to post a separate article about it. This entry is for those games.
Le Diamant de l'Ile Maudite
"The Diamond of the Cursed Isle"
France
Loriciels (developer and publisher)
Released 1984 for Oric, 1985 for Amstrad CPCRejected for: No attributes, no character development
Diamant is a graphical text adventure that takes place on the titular Cursed Isle. The backstory indicates that the island was discovered by an English explorer named Steven Smith in 1925. Smith believed it was the cradle of a lost civilization. The character confirms this early on, as the game starts him facing a stone tower and ends deep underground. His quest is to retrieve the titular diamond while fighting various monsters and solving inventory puzzles.
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| Yep, I guess people probably lived here. |
The game doesn't look bad as early-1980s text adventures go. It deserves some credit for the parser, which autofills verbs and nouns after you've typed a few letters. Each location has four facing directions, offering a sense of first-person immersion that was rare in 1984. It's as much of an RPG, however, as Zork. Whoever contributed it to MobyGames must have thought that the presence of a "life" score must mean it's an RPG.
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| Picking up a mace. |
This is the kind of game that I might quickly play if it was in English. I can read French okay, but I have to look up just enough words that I don't want to spend the time.
This is the only game I can find credited to authors Bertrand d'Armagnac and Frédéric Baille. The version I downloaded also gives one of the authors as "J. P. Belmondo," but I assume that's a "cracktro" screen, as it also assigns the copyright to "Walt Dysney." Anyone interested in the game who speaks French will want to watch this interview with Mr. d'Armagnac.
Legacy of the Wizard
AKA Dragon Slayer IV: Draslefamily (Japan)
JapanNihon Falcom (developer and publisher)
Released 1987 for MSX and NES in Japan, 1989 for NES in North AmericaRejected for: Insufficient character development
A side-scrolling action game, part of the Dragon Slayer series in Japan. Five members of the Drasle family take it upon themselves to prevent the release of an ancient dragon named Keela. The player can flexibly switch from among the five characters (including a pet monster) to use their various strengths. Collectively, they must find four crowns that unlock the way to the fabled weapon DragonSlayer before taking on the dragon. I have no idea how the U.S. title makes sense.
I won the first Dragon Slayer game and played a bit of the second one, but like many series that start as RPGs, this one seems to have shed that status along the way. Based on what I read, the "RPG elements" in Legacy consist of inventory improvements and "power-ups." It appears from the screen that maximum life can increase (which I don't regard as sufficient character development to be an RPG), but I'm not sure how, as the game doesn't appear to have experience points.
Doc the Destroyer
AustraliaBeam Software (developer); Melbourne House (publisher)
Released 1987 for Commodore 64 and ZX SpectrumI don't know why Australians are so attracted to fiction involving post-apocalyptic wastelands. This one is set centuries after an environmental disaster. Survivors live under an oppressive dome and have reverted to barbarism (everyone walks around wearing a loincloth and carrying a club). Doc the Destroyer wants to lead his people back to the surface world. The primary mechanism of the game is side-view action combat.
This one fails to meet my definitions on technical grounds. You set attributes (strength, intelligence, endurance, charisma, and luck) upon character creation, but they don't improve during the game (unless I missed something). I was tempted to play it anyway, as there are RPG-like role-playing options . . .
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| I imagine "Charisma" and "Intelligence" are used in these scenarios. |
. . . but I had trouble getting either version to emulate properly. (Screenshots are from YouTuber joe morris's brief coverage.) I'm sure the issues are solvable given the videos that cover the game, but sometimes emulation problems are doing me a favor.
Thoughts on Elden Ring
A couple of weeks ago, I did something somewhat stupid and bought an Xbox Series X and Elden Ring. I had tried Dark Souls II a few years ago and Lords of the Fallen, so it's not like I didn't know what I was getting into. I have read virtually nothing about the game online so as to avoid spoilers. A few notes:
- In terms of backstory and setting, this is easily the most confusing game I have ever played. The introductory cinematic is just some guy shouting names. I'm about 15 hours into it, and I still have no idea what a "Tarnished" is. I like games where you have to piece together the story and lore from obscure clues, but I'm starting to lose faith that there are enough of those to make sense out of.
- "Queen Marika the Eternal is nowhere to be found." Neither is anyone else. Does anyone actually live in this world? Who do these wandering merchants trade with? Does this game have anything like a town?
- It doesn't appear that enemies scale, and I like that if you have trouble with a boss, you can run off and grind for a while and then try again.
- That Tree Sentinel is one of the cruelest enemies in any RPG. It's like the authors said to each other, "Let's give the player no doubt as to what kind of game he's playing."
- I started off with a "wretch," who begins at Level 1 with no equipment, mostly because I like the early-game experience of assembling your kit piece by piece. But I had so much trouble that I restarted and chose a "vagabond," who starts at Level 10 and a bunch of armor. Oddly, I didn't find him much easier. Character development is extremely incremental.
- I have no idea if I'm "leveling" my character appropriately. I was going for a balanced character, but I guess that was a mistake given how hard I'm finding the boss fights.
- I don't necessarily mind that boss fights require you to try multiple times and "git gud." I do mind that a) the game gives you a "dodge" mechanic that doesn't seem to let you dodge a single boss attack; and b) the game gives you healing potions but makes the drinking animation takes so long that you always get hit while you're trying to take one. It took me a long time to learn that bosses have to be fought with pure offense.
- I'm never going to enjoy this system of quasi-saving where you get to keep your equipment when you die but not your experience unless you go and find it at the place you died. For that matter, I don't really care for the confusing auto-saving in games like Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto, either. I want a damned "Save" option. And when I reload a save, I want it to be as if everything that happened after the save point never happened.
So, yeah, this sort of game really isn't for me. And yet the visuals are so stunning and the monsters so interesting that the game has kept my interest. Plus, defeating Margit the Fell Omen last night gave me a sense of accomplishment that I don't get from a lot of RPGs.
>I don't know why Australians are so attracted to fiction involving post-apocalyptic wastelands.
ReplyDeleteThat's just normal Australian life, where the world is a desert, and all living beings are poisonous and try to kill you.
Drat, I was in a hurry to make the joke, and used 'poisonous' instead of 'venomous'. Rookie mistake.
DeleteThat reminds me of the short tune 'Come to Australia' by Scared Weird Little Guys (e.g. https://youtu.be/eNEeq5qGh8I) where they go through the deadly fauna.
DeleteWatch out! A poisonous snake!
Deletea POIsonous snake!!
DeleteI know this is breaking the joke and I'm sorry for that. But as a non-native English speaker I'm always trying to improve and would be glad if you could help me out here. According to Oxford dictionary 'poisonous' and 'poisonous snakes' are perfectly valid English so what am I missing here? Why must it be 'venomous' instead?
Delete
DeleteIn colloquial use, they're interchangable, but there is a very useful and important distinction. Poison harms you if it is digested, venom harms you if it enters your bloodstream. Many venoms won't actually hurt you if you eat them, as long as you don't have open sores somewhere that let it enter your blood directly.
If it bites you and you die, it is venomous.
If you bite it and you die, it is poisonous.
Radiant and P-Tux7 also appear to be directly mocking King's Quest V's voice acting.
Both poison and venom are toxic.
DeleteWatch out! A toxicous snake!
DeleteAgreed on the save option. Just let me save normally, I don't want to be forced to repeat content or be weakened if I fail at some point.
ReplyDeleteIt de-incentivizes experimentation and makes you play more conservatively which is the exact opposite of what you want in an open world game.
"Hmm, there might be a secret there, I wonder if I can make the jump. But if I fail I lose my experience so I'd rather not try."
By default save-scumming disincentives experimentation most of all because if something’s hard you can usually just save and reload incrementally until you succeed. If you have the willpower to not abuse these obvious tools that give a path to least resistance then more power to you but most people (including myself) do not.
DeleteYeah but... who cares? The guy who wants to save-scum paid the exact same $60 as the guy who doesn't. Every game should let every player play in whatever way entertains them most, and I will never understand any arguments to the contrary.
DeleteA good example of this is the myriad of difficulty settings in Control.
I can't/won't play Dark Souls-esque games because I'm more interested in experiencing the story and I know the game designers won't hesitate to put in some challenge that I won't ever be able to beat (I'm not as young as I used to be and I was never that great at video games in the first place...), cheating me out of my $60.
Personally save-scumming makes me more likely to experiment, if I can pop down a save before doing something stupid I'm far more likely to do it instead of playing it safe
DeleteTo me that's not save scumming. Scumming implies abusing the save system in some sort, and saving before important events is often recommended behaviour that is explicitly mentioned in the manual (at least when manuals were still a thing).
DeleteI would not even consider reloading and retrying combat until you get enough lucky rolls to win, or find the right strategy, as save scumming, neither reloading and trying different dialogue options to see where they lead. Games that are supposed to be played in a roll-with-the-punches manner often design their save systems differently.
Whether or not it should be called save scumming, just repeating an encounter with the same tactics until you get lucky enough rolls seems like some sort of design/gaming failure. Games should aspire to be more than slot machines.
DeleteI'm not crazy about Elden Ring's death system, but it becomes manageable. I hoard golden rune items so that I can use them to top off my runes for a level up whenever I think I'm going somewhere I might not be able to easily retrieve my runes. And then when you have few runes then there aren't many consequences for death or experimentation.
Personally, I'd prefer a smaller flat rune penalty so that death always has some stakes instead of the stakes being situationally gigantic or trivial, which encourages the dull rune management described above.
If I recall correctly from previous entries, Chet is OK with (and possibly prefers) save systems that are limited in a way that makes RNG scumming less viable. My general attitude is that being able to save before a big fight is a good thing, being able to save during a fight is not, and that if being able to save before a big fight allows you to trivially RNG-scum your way through it, the combat system in the game is too swingy and random.
DeleteHi, as James said there up
Delete"Yeah but... who cares? The guy who wants to save-scum paid the exact same $60 as the guy who doesn't. Every game should let every player play in whatever way entertains them most, and I will never understand any arguments to the contrary."
The fact of many games designers want the gamers to play the game exactly the way they pictured in their head is something I cannot really understand. They think so much of their artistry, of their narrative only being understood in a certain specific ways, that you find these kind of limitations. I recall an adventure, almost visual novel that was sold in Steam recently that only allowed you to auto save instead of having mutiple saves because it wanted you to "experience the story once", and I was like "what? leave me experiment the story as I want, dude and at my pace". It's like leaving the subtitles out because you believe they distract from the story.
The biggest complication here is the game designer's addage that if it is possible for the player to "play wrong", they will blame you for it - if brute force save-scumming the RNG will work, players will do it and then they will write scathing reviews about how terrible your game is for "forcing" them to do that. And "wrong" here is sort of broadly defined as "In a way that isn't fun for the person doing it"
DeleteAs a player, yeah, I don't like feeling that the game designer is trying to force me to play his way or punishing me for not following their script. I am here to have fun, and if I am stuck for six months because I just can't f****ing make that one jump, then I am not having fun, and I will be angry if the game took steps to stop me from "cheesing" it some other way. I got other stuff to do; I'm a grown-up with kids and a job, I only have like six hours a year for video games.
As a designer, it's bad for your ego AND your sales if it becomes part of the zeitgeist that your game expects the player to brute force something.
And I definitely remember my friends complaining about games where they were "forced" to grind boringly up to level 99, whereafter all the required fights became trivial. They found the game easy and boring, while I, having a low threshold for boredom, pushed my way though the game at level 30 and thought that the fights were nerve-wracking resource management puzzles.
I don't think there's any perfect solution, but I generally come down on the pro-accessibility side. Within reason game designers should make their game highly customizable and let players play with it how they want.
DeleteBut they should also make clear defaults and recommendations on what they believe will be the most satisfying way to play the game, and perhaps encourage this approach through things like achievements and other inessential rewards.
After that it's on the player. Some will ruin their experience by messing up the settings. I hope I'm not too unsensitive to those that lack self-control or openess to get out of their comfort zone, but that's their fault. It seems worth it for the many others that will be able to unlock a significantly more satisfying experience.
I've long been a proponent of authorial intent in games. Too much front-loaded customization options frankly annoy me - you're the designer, not me, and it's your responsibility to make the game fun (new game+ options however can be as ridiculous as you like - I'm past caring about your intent once the serious playthrough is over). When it comes to games in the Dark Souls family, I take the stance that these games know what they're trying to be, nobody is buying these by accident, unaware of their reputation, and if that isn't your cup of tea, then it would be a better use of your time and energy to play something that is than to tweak and customize them into something that they aren't.
DeleteGoing by Steam achievements, around 25% of Elden Ring players beat the game, which is about even with other best sellers like Dead Space and Spider-Man. The game clearly isn't hurting for sales, and if players are beating it at the same rate that they're beating other games, then I don't see much value in taking steps to ensure more players can reach the end.
I also lean on the side of accessibility. I think its fine though if the game tells me I won "wrong" as long as it doesn't do so by punishing me. "You turned on easy mode so you are locked out of the good ending" is not cool, but, say, having the next NPC I meet tell me how "lucky" I was to have guessed the combination to the last door without hunting down the six macguffins that revealed the code would be great: I get to keep going, but I know it's my own fault I spent an hour brute-forcing it.
DeleteMy preference has less to do with difficulty than with mentally wanting to have a clear cutoff point between what I've accomplished and what I haven't.
DeleteThat said, I recognize that there are some advantages to the DS system, and it introduces some strategic and tactical considerations that aren't present in a simple reloading system.
This concept keeps popping up over and over. The cohort of people who primarily play games for the experience of control. They're not in control at work, they're not in control at home with their families, and dammit when they find a precious few hours for a game they better damn well be in control. If not, why even play in the first place? Their lives are nerve-wracking enough, why on earth would they want to experience that in a game?
DeleteThe other more traditional kind of game is one where the player must overcome challenges. Being in control of everything is dull and lifeless. They want the joy of overcoming a quest and the satisfaction of real achievement that comes afterwards. Some of my best video game memories were nerve-wracking experiences. Finally boarding and capturing the United Galactic Alliance dreadnaught in Star Fleet II: Krellan Commander is one of my prized recollections. I had to work hard to do that, and it was totally worth it.
You can't make a game that satisfies both. Why the first cohort insists that games made for the second cohort conform to their preferences is something I cannot really understand. Just play different games! I hear the walking simulator game is right up their alley. All of the story, none of those frustrating challenges.
"If not, why even play in the first place? Their lives are nerve-wracking enough, why on earth would they want to experience that in a game?"
DeleteThis certainly tracks with my antipathy toward the occasionally surfacing trend of game designers doing deeply pathological things that make the game tedious and unfun, and justifying it as "realistic".
Re: "everybody knows what they're getting into"
DeleteNot until they pay the first $60 and find out, though. How was I supposed to know Dark Souls wasn't for me without paying for it, and ending up with an expensive game I couldn't even play? (Forget finishing: Dark Souls didn't even have PAUSE! If your phone or doorbell rings, well, tough luck.)
Now I might have realized the problem in time to get a Steam refund, although maybe not.
The other reason games should have tons of accessibility options is because disabled people want to play games and why shouldn't they be able to? Microsoft has been great in opening up the field to everybody, with their accessible Xbox controller development, games like Forza coming with tons of accessibility options (including sign language subtitles!) etc. That's what I like to see.
If the "problem" with making a game accessible is that some players lack self-control, then:
1) Well that's on those players, don't punish everybody else for their problem, but also:
2) Back to "well, who cares?" If the guy grinded to level 99 to beat the game, then apparently that was entertaining to him? That's how he wanted to play it? So what's the problem. If he didn't think that was fun he wouldn't have done it.
BTW I also want to address Harland's comment that "you can't make a game that satisfies both". I disagree entirely. Tons of games out there are capable of satisfying everybody-- including Control, the first example I put out there.
DeleteThe difficulty slider in Skyrim and other Bethesda games goes from "you can win this literally with your eyes closed" to "even the weakest grunt will suck up 5 healing potions" and those games always are (well, were: who knows if Bethesda will ever make another one!) well-reviewed.
On PC they also expose the console, just right there with no limitations. They also ship the game with an editing app to read literally the entire game's database, every location every item every NPC can be looked-up at any time. Anybody can create or download a mod changing the game in any way imaginable at any time. Doesn't hurt their popularity or sales one tiny bit.
The Steam edition of Dark Souls is called "Prepare to Die Edition" and everything about the store page just shrieks that the game is unforgiving and proud of it. Just look at the quick blurb, the user tags below it, and the key features in the long description. Never mind the reviews, the surrounding culture, and the reputation so ingrained in the gaming sphere that "soulslike" was already a term of art by the time this came out. You had plenty of ways of knowing about its uncompromising intentions without spending the $60, and that was over ten years ago.
DeleteYeah but nothing on there said it wouldn't have PAUSE!
DeleteAnyway I'm glad you knew all that stuff before you bought the game. I didn't.
I'm not finding the arguments against having accessibility options that convincing.
DeleteAhab, I agree the options shouldn't be pushed in your face to wade through when you start the game. The developer should present their vision as the default, but that doesn't mean you can't have them available in the menu for those who need to seek them out. There are only so many games out there, and it's a good thing if more people can find a way to connect with more games.
Harland, I'm not even sure I understand your argument. They are options! That means one set of players can choose to use them, and another set can choose to not use them. It absolutely "satisfies both". And even among those that are seeking challenge, options allow more people to find what actually presents them a challenge.
(Of course, there's nothing wrong with also wanting to play in control and approach a game as a interesting toy to experiment with.)
I don't find the arguments that every game requires or even benefits from having extensive gameplay customization options to be convincing, and I often find the arguments that frame this around a need for accessibility to be disingenuous. The needs of the abled player who finds Dark Souls too frustrating to be enjoyable are completely different from the needs of the player who can't operate a standard gamepad thanks to a disability, and I find it crass when players of the former persuasion co-opt the cause of accessibility when the real issue is that these games just aren't to their taste.
DeleteMeanwhile, players with severe motor skill impairment have beaten these games anyway. Even Sekiro, a game much faster paced than Dark Souls / Elden Ring and doesn't have fallbacks like grinding, summoning, or overpowered magic, has several such anecdotes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/comments/bs7bwd/i_just_beat_sword_saint_with_one_hand/
Great point about the co-opting of the accessibility argument, Ahab.
DeleteIn any case, this is admittedly a bit catty, but the statement "Yeah but... who cares?" can be said by the other side, too: Why should the artists do the work of adding additional difficulty levels if they don't want to, for whatever reason? They don't want to, end of story.
(Of course you're free to argue for difficulty levels as much as you like.)
I also disagree with the statement that a game with a difficulty slider can satisfy everybody. Yes, players of all skill levels can play that game. But the sense of achievement is very different. If there is no way to beat that boss, to reach the next area, to beat the game, than to "git gud" -- with no fallback, no lower difficulty settings -- then a lot of players will actually manage to overcome these challenges, and they'll feel great; maybe they even reached a higher skill level than they could have imagined. But they would have taken a lower difficulty setting if the game offered that, missing out on this great sense of skill and achievement.
In the opinion of their designers, games like Dark Souls or Spelunky need this single, challenging difficulty level. It's how they got their reputation, it's how they attract players.
Also, I'll point out that in past discussions in this comment section, quite a few people said that when a CRPG has a "hard" mode, they don't trust that this mode is actually fair and fun and not merely a chore. A single difficulty level says, "this is how the game is meant to be played, and we put a lot of work in it to balance it well; trust us and come along for the ride, or if you don't want to, please play another game".
One of two good comments from you today. I'm taking notes for a special entry on this topic. I'm not a fan of "hard" modes that simply add a multiplier to damage done and received, but a few games have done clever things with enemy AI on harder modes, and I like the "survival" mode of the Fallout games that introduces completely new logistical considerations.
DeleteI have beaten every Soulslike I can access (no Demon Souls original or remake, but I did borrow a PS4 to beat Bloodbourne). Every one available on Steam, 2d, 3d, or otherwise. Several adjacent. The only 100% completions I have on my Steam account are Ni-OH 1, 2, and Elden Ring. IMO all of them need to be at least played through 1 round of NG+ to be able to experience the differences in item placement and enemy locations as well as what a fully realized build can do compared to playing at the beginning. And I still ask for adjustable difficulty levels, similar to what Spiders has, frankly, pushed the genre forward with in Steel Rising, so I can play with my disabled son. Gatekeepers really bother me, when they take away even the chance for him and I to be able to partake of something I love
DeleteHuh. Well, I certainly didn't intend to co-op, be crass, or disingenous. I feel like I was just trying to make good arguments about how games sometimes unnecessarily limit themselves, but maybe that was lost in translation on a message board. I hope you'll take my word for it.
DeleteIf "accessibility" is a reserved word just for disabiliies then my apologies for misusing it. In my mind, even though there is certainly a range of differences, I still see a common theme of it being good if games have the flexibility to include more people, for whatever reason, and I was using the word in that sense.
I constantly run into games that I feel like I could really enjoy if it was just for one or two different design decisions, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. When these alternative modes could have easily been provided, I don't see it as awesome that a player was unable to connect with a game.
"Why should the artists do the work of adding additional difficulty levels if they don't want to, for whatever reason?"
Obviously they can do what they want, but I suspect a lot of them would like to have more players enjoy their game. I'm just making arguments that I believe would facilitate that. But if they want a game that only a small group will play then they certainly should not follow my advice!
I guess I have a hard time connecting with the idea that game designers need to treat their players like small children that can't make their own decisions and seek their own challenges on their own terms. It feels like leaving a lot of potential on the table.
"Obviously they can do what they want, but I suspect a lot of them would like to have more players enjoy their game. I'm just making arguments that I believe would facilitate that. But if they want a game that only a small group will play then they certainly should not follow my advice!"
DeleteYou know, that's an interesting question. FromSoftware used to be an obscure company making niche games. Then Demon's Souls was a cult hit, and why? Due to its uncompromising challenge. Now Elden Ring was bought by more than 17 million players so far, and they love it.
If I was FromSoftware's boss, and suppose that my sole interest would be to have as many players as possible -- then I wouldn't change a thing. Maybe an additional easy mode or a cheat mode would be uncontroversial, or maybe it would be received like adding an escalator to Mount Everest.
Maybe following your vision is more likely to result in a megahit than following the masses, ironically.
In any case, most big titles have either several difficulty levels or a moderate difficulty level. Also, if you have the PC version of Elden Ring, there are several mods that lower the difficulty. So why expect this one company to conform to these expectations? Let them be.
Accessibility options like subtitles, colourblind mode, and one-handed control schemes are great.
DeleteThe ability to make gameplay easier, particular for story-centric games, is great (and holding this view doesn't exclude one from being a 'serious' gamer).
That challenging games exist, which gate content behind difficult gameplay, is great (and holding this view doesn't make one ableist).
I slightly prefer playing games without difficulty options - I don't like having to guess which setting is going to give me the best experience.
I was thinking, are the anti-options folk equally horrified by what happens in the mod and romhacking communities, because it kind of all seems like the same thing to me? Is that a violation of authorial intent that would be better to not exist?
DeleteAhab, (I love your blog by the way!) I know you sometimes will use save-states to make certain games accessible to you. You could simply decide the game is not for you and play something else, but I'm glad you don't. Wouldn't it have been better if the game designers had just built in those options to begin with?
Tristan: "I slightly prefer playing games without difficulty options - I don't like having to guess which setting is going to give me the best experience."
Just choose the default! That's their way of saying: if we could only have included one setting, this would be it. Choose it if that's what you're looking for, otherwise here are some other options just in case. I find this argument so confusing?
The "default" isn't always the best option either.
DeleteIf you're not marketing your game as "difficult" (like Souls games) then you don't necessarily want to turn off your larger market with a difficulty spike at the beginning.
So I think it's safer as the developer to err on the side of easier than harder for the default, if you're providing multiple options.
Supporting a developer's decision not to include certain options isn't the same thing as being anti-option. Just as one can support the modding community while also supporting a developer's decision not to include or endorse any mods.
DeleteYes, I use save states sometimes. Championship Lode Runner was the most recent example of this, where I backed up saves after each level. As I said in my summary, I think Doug Smith made the completely wrong call in giving the player so few lives for 50 absolutely diabolical levels, so many of which need trial and error to solve. Had he provided the option of an infinite lives cheat, I would have still said this should have been the default for this game (not for the original Lode Runner which is fine as-is).
Regarding default difficulty, it's fairly common nowadays for developers to designate the "real" default difficulty that the game had been designed around as one of the harder settings, and scaling things back from that for what they call "normal" difficulty. The logic behind this is that the developers, who know the ins and outs and have plenty of practice, may think their game is easier than it really is.
Regarding "following your vision is more likely to result in a megahit than following the masses" - that really depends on whether you define megahit as getting great reviews (Elden Ring does well by this metric), OR by brand recognition (the FIFA series is a good example here), OR by sales revenue (Candy Crush and similar simplistic games will win this by a wide mile).
DeleteIt has long been true that really hard games get a lot of press attention BUT really easy games get WAAAAAAY more players (and thus, revenue).
Sorry, but you don't "get" 'Souls games if you prefer saving wherever. These games aren't about save scumming. They aren't about second chances at choices. Every choice you make is permanent and there is no reversing your decision. The games are designed to encourage you to thoughtfully approach every situation and deal with the consequences of whatever you choose. Anything otherwise would be a violation of their game design. These aren't the games for you if this is an issue. Also, I absolutely prefer the 'Souls approach to respawning/progress continuation. So what if I have to grab my souls? I don't have to do x, y and z again, because I managed to obtain/do them before I got wasted. System Shock started this trend decades ago and is widely accepted as a great alternative to repetitive re-loading.
DeleteThe question I'm more interested in, which fork of the road is better for the individual development team. The team of Demon's Souls chose to follow their vision to such an extent that they even kept quiet about their game's high difficulty in their meetings with their publisher Sony because they feared that they'd be overruled. They happened to find success, with quite a bit of luck -- the game wasn't much of a success in Japan and was more successful in the west. If they had been forced to lower the difficulty, including in their later games, they might still be an obscure company. If they had switched to making easy mass-market mobile games, who knows whether they would still exist. Of course it's hard to say, and there's the survivorship bias to keep in mind, but their path *is* an undeniable example of success that came from sticking to their guns.
Delete"When these alternative modes could have easily been provided"
Implementing a lower difficulty that is also well-balanced would have required a lot of work of the development team, especially the balance testers. The risk is that both modes could have ended up less well-balanced.
"treat their players like small children that can't make their own decisions and seek their own challenges on their own terms."
One, a high difficulty level forces every player to really master the game systems and to try to take advantage of every possible tactic. At a lower difficulty level, players often wouldn't even see the possibilities (because they're not necessary to proceed), so they'd consider the game to be less deep and interesting.
Secondly, Miyazaki wanted to create a community that shared a sense of overcoming adversity. Anyone who talks about struggling or overcoming one of the game's challenges will share a common understanding with everyone else who plays. You can expect that if you talk with your friend about the Tree Sentinel, you'll have a shared experience and you can motivate each other. But if you played on hard, struggling for hours, and your friend played on easy, beating that boss on the first try, the commonality of facing the same adversity is gone and the opportunity for mutual motivation is diminished.
Harwin: "The "default" isn't always the best option either."
DeleteExactly. And if you can't trust the developer to choose the best option as the default, then how does it make sense to trust them to choose the right option as the ONLY option?
Developers can do whatever they want. I hope it's obvious that I'm not talking about forcing anyone to do anything. And I understand that developers also have finite resources and can't offer everything. But it seems to me that more options, available in non-intrusive ways, is generally better than fewer.
Ahab: "I think Doug Smith made the completely wrong call in giving the player so few lives for 50 absolutely diabolical levels"
So I get lost when you think you have the judgement to make call this about Championship Loderunner, but other players lack the judgement to make it about other games?
Bitmap: I'd offer Celeste as a contrast. This is a challenging game. It also has accessibility options that allow you infinite stamina or jumps, invulnerability, or even slower game speeds. This didn't seem to destroy the game or take away its edge. Some people used them and some people didn't. There's still a well made, difficult game there for anyone who wants it.
DeleteSo I'm skeptical that something similar would undermine other games the way you suggest. I can't know for sure, and I can't prove it, but I don't see much evidence to support it.
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DeleteI'm not sure how you're interpreting my stance as that I alone have the mandate to criticize a developer's intentional decisions. If you want to say that From made the wrong call in not having quicksaves, or in anything else, that's your prerogative. Just be prepared to face an avalanche of scrutiny.
Delete“Just choose the default! That's their way of saying: if we could only have included one setting, this would be it.”
DeleteI’m not confident that a game with a single difficulty setting is necessarily going to balanced the same way as the ‘default’ option in a game with multiple difficulty settings.
Unsolicited tip on Elden Ring: the jump button is your friend. Many attacks that are extremely difficult to dodge-roll are trivial to jump over.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like good advice for a player who isn't all thumbs in the first place. But I'll try.
DeleteI haven't played Elden Ring myself, but I've heard that the purpose of the Tree Sentinel is to tell you "Sometimes you will just walk into a boss that you can't beat right now, and you should go away and grind until you have better stats and equipment." Though I've also heard that some people fight it at the beginning anyway.
ReplyDeleteYes, and we win. These games reward skilled gameplay. That's part of what makes Elden even better of an open world ARPG: You aren't required to grind for XP if your own, personal skill XP is high enough. The game gives you multiple options, which is pretty nifty, and open to a wider audience of players.
DeleteDoes calling this entry 'Part 1' imply that 'Part 2' is right around the corner? I like the format, but nobody expects you to wade through non-rpg's and still report on them.
ReplyDeleteNot right around the corner. But if I group multiple games into one BRIEF again, I don't want it to have the same title as this one. (Although I guess the Elden Ring addition took care of that consideration.)
DeleteI, for one, really appreciate these BRIEFs as they provide at least some information about really obscure titles. I can decide to play them myself if my interest is piqued. Thank-you.
ReplyDeleteIf you’ve beaten Margit then you’ve overcome a seriously major hurdle. From’s games have the worst onboarding and tend to direct you straight into a brick wall. You can actually explore almost the entire world before beating him if you like. So any time you have trouble with a blocker boss (of which there are fewer than you think), you have many many other opportunities for gaining equipment or leveling up.
ReplyDeleteExactly, you can scale the game to your skill level by just going somewhere else for a while. Leave markers on the map for tough fights to come back to later. At the beginning you can clear the Weeping Peninsula to the south, and you can even find a way around Stormveil Castle to Liurnia of the Lakes to the north. And if you're really daring you can take your horse through much of Caelid to the east, running away from enemies, but finding better equipment and upgrades here and there.
DeleteApparently he beat Margrit without dodge rolling, flasks, or knowing how the stats work. So not only would you say he overcome a major hurdle I'd say the game is a lot easier than he probably thinks it is.
DeleteI don't know what I said to make you think I beat him without flasks. As for dodge-rolling, it's wrong to say I didn't do it, just that I'm not very good at it.
DeleteThere are towns and villages in Elden Ring but alas, everyone in them is as homicidal as 98% of everything else in the game.
ReplyDelete(With one exception that I can think of.)
Elden Ring is essentially a post apocalyptic game. You're there to "fix" things, with varying degrees of "fix".
DeleteAll souls games are post-apocalyptic. The world used to be great and got ruined by something and you show up, interact with the few people remaining and go through hoards of monsters and bosses until you beat it.
DeleteAnd how much did they pay G.R.R. Martin to come up with *that*?
DeleteThey made him a meal he couldn't refuse.
DeleteI have never understood the affection (even by professional games journalists who are good writers) for the stories in Fromsoft games. As Chet points out, the world-building doesn't make any sense. The NPCs who show up don't act like they're living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where everyone is a murderous zombie; they act like life is more or less normal except for a few bad apples. The scale of the environments also makes no sense, although it's no worse than other rpgs in that regard. They also are an example of why showing vs. telling is so important - in so far as a narrative exists, it's told to you through item descriptions or sparse dialogue and never shown through character actions. The game is still a masterpiece.
DeleteAs far as gameplay goes, dodging is definitely possible and even necessary, but the first few bosses are designed to trick you into dodging early instead of waiting for the last possible second. Shields are pretty good in this game against many enemies with these tricky attacks. Magic is overpowered, especially the spell rock sling, and will let you cheese many boss encounters.
I think the "post apocaliptic" appreciation here is more an appreciation of the whole "I am the only one sane here and I am going to survive killing everyone that is a monster / different than me" narrrative that is so present in zombie narratives and intersects with other points as "I must be the man who protects the family" etc. Personally, I find that kind of narrative a bit on the narcissistic side and boring. Give me "The Postman" post-apocalypse where government officers restore the world via symbols, just because they love their work.
DeleteGoing to ask for pardon in advance just in case. This is how I feel about that narrative, how it feels to me. It does not mean that whoever enjoys the narrative is the same, but just relates to them more. I am not part of that narrative - I understand and feel very much the "man against nature" in Westerns for example - it is just that "I will fight for me and my family" has been used so much that I can only see that as a power fantasy.
DeleteI appreciate the thoughts on the game world. The opening cinematic indicates that the goal is to "stand before the Elden Ring and become the next Elden Lord," but I keep wondering, "why?" What am I going to be lord OF, exactly?
DeleteShort version: Multiple alien gods have varying interests in this world. At some point one god in particular founded a civilization/religion and raised some individuals and their immediate family to be demigods and act as his agents and then proceeded to conquer or subdue the rest of the world bringing everything under one rule. But after some time for various reasons, including disatisfaction by some of the demigods, this civilization collapsed and the demigods went into civil war which ended up in a spent stalemate.
DeleteAlso through the past some individuals were banished from this world. But something is calling them back, apparently to break this stalemate. These are the Tarnished and your character is just one of many. Having been gone from this world for a time makes them special with the potential to be heroes or villains and bring real change. Many of the people you meet will also be Tarnished and have their own goals and ideas about what should happen next.
The Elden Ring/Lord stuff is just about how to consolidate power again and choose what happens next. In the meantime you're navigating a world of dozens of gods, demigods, rival Tarnished, and factions that all have their own goals.
The souls game stories always seemed to me to follow that the world is in a place which suffering is only artificial elongated through some rituals and traditions. So Chets question of why is a good one and for me the answers do don't become one, end the suffering, which those games often give you an option for it (Ranni or frenzied flame e. G. for eldenring)
DeleteLegacy of the Wizard is a neat game but it's definitely not an RPG, despite often being categorized as one. It's a puzzle platformer.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to see Brøderbund as (US) publisher for 'Legacy of the Wizard' on the NES. Had associated them so far primarily with early C64 games like 'Lode Runner' or 'Raid on Bungeling Bay' or later the 'Carmen Sandiego' and 'Prince of Persia' series.
DeleteThough now I see among the games featured on this blog they also published 'Dark Heart of Uukrul', distributed 'Spellcraft' and - published 'Deadly Towers' for the NES in the US. Wikipedia tells me for a brief time the company published some titles that were produced by companies that didn't have a North American subsidiary, next to NES ports of its own games, and even developed and marketed a motion sensitive NES controller device (which did not encounter much success, though, it seems).
Re the US title: according to the backstory, the Drasle (short for Dragon Slayer) family members are descendants of a great wizard who captured a dragon years ago and "put it deep in the ground", but the latter is now going to "revive" soon, triggering the game action.
My brother owned Legacy of the Wizard for NES, and I played and won it back in the day. I think without walk-throughs as well.
DeleteIt's definitely not a CRPG, I'd classify it as an "action RPG" similar to Zelda. Each of the five family members represents a class of sorts. The son is the only one who can wield the dragon slayer sword, so you use him last; the dragon it right near the entrance and can only be freed when you obtain the four crowns.
The game rather cleverly gatekeeps the different sections of the dungeon so that only one character can advance through it to get one of the crowns. The pet is left alone by monsters and there is a section where he can walk through stationary invulnerable monsters where anyone else dies. The father can get a mattock and break blocks to reach his section. The mother gets a float spell that lets her walk across a spike field no one else can traverse. And the daughter has a high jump that only she can make. The only advancement is getting various trinkets to give special abilities, plus there's lots of generic ones like magic restore potions, bread for health, and so forth.
Wrt Elden Ring: my memory is that you want to build out your character based on the kind of damage you want to do (Str based, Dexterity based, Int, etc.) and focus on those stats, with maybe a few in survivability and any skills you think you need. A lot depends on the weapons you're using and what stats they use.
ReplyDeleteLegacy of the Wizard:
Once again, I'll note that this series is actually still alive, though nobody would doubt the newer games' status as RPGs. Trails into the Sky /Trails of Cold Steel, and their relatives, are part of the Legend of Heroes series, which started as part of the Dragon Slayer series.
Sounds like Legacy is more of a Metroidvania, not unlike its cousin Faxanadu.
I'd also suggest approaching Elden Ring with more flexibility for looking up information online. It was pretty much explicitly designed to be approached as a community. That includes storyline elements as well, though I believe the story does emerge more obviously later in the game.
Deletekillias2 is totally correct but I'll just come out and say that there are respec opportunities in the game after a certain point in case you find yourself afflicted with build paralysis.
Delete"How to properly spec your character" is information Souls games have always had trouble surfacing, and more so with each successive one as the same audience (who already know what's up) just shrugs and gets on with it. There's a resistance to looking stuff like this up, especially for RPG vets who are loath to consult guides but have maybe have left Souls well enough alone until now due to their reputation as tough action RPGs, but it's sometimes warranted here as Killias2 points out.
DeletePersonally, I've always disliked how easy it is to permanently mess up NPC quests without reading beforehand what flags trigger what. It's not even the case where a NPC quest gets botched because you tell them to rush into danger or some similarly bad advice; it's often the case that they're just standing in a random spot on a map the size of Texas but only between two particular story events and if you miss them they vanish forever.
Anyway, usual strategy is to pump a combat stat until you qualify for the weapon(s) you want to use and then mostly stick to a mix of endurance (stamina), vitality (health), and said combat stat (and mind for the extra mana in the case of a magic-user). Oh, and watch out for soft caps.
(I like Legacy of the Wizard too, but you're right that it's mostly a fantasy-themed version of an exploration platformer like Metroid. Besides it and Lord Monarch I think all of Falcom's other Dragon Slayer games qualify as RPGs though.)
"I believe the story does emerge more obviously later in the game."
DeleteDelivery method aside, does Elden Ring actually have an interesting story or backstory? Assuming that the player is trying to piece things together from the available information in-game.
(Without going into spoilers.)
(I don't mean, does it *have* a backstory, I mean, does it have a backstory that is *interesting and good*? Would it still be considered an interesting story outside the context of a From Software game?)
DeleteI think it has a pretty good backstory, but I definitely needed to rely on YouTube summaries to get a clear grasp of it. The information is there -- lots of it in item descriptions -- but I don't have anywhere near the focus to mentally put it all together myself while playing.
DeleteThe NPC side quest system is very difficult to manage and easy to screw up. I just gave in and used the wiki to make sure I wasn't missing things. It definitely could have been better designed.
I wouldn't say it has a strong story, I enjoyed playing it a lot but there were only a few story/NPC things that I thought were good, and even then they are quite brief.
DeleteIt has a very evocative and consistent tone, mostly delivered through art direction, but it doesn't have a strong "story" in the sense of characters and plot.
DeleteI think the game has a deep history of what happens before your adventure starts, though it's a minor research project to tease it out without relying on external guides. But there's a lot of good stuff there.
DeleteBut yes, the narrative that occurs as you play through the game is much more minor. It has some moments, but it's mostly about overcoming challenges and discovering what came before and why things are as they are, and then making some choices about who to side with and how to resolve things.
I don't mind this approach to delivering the story, and I appreciate your opinion that it actually exists. When I was playing the other day, I was trying to figure out the relationship between Stormhill Castle and the one at the other end of the road to the south. There seems to be a consistent line of regular guard posts along the way, and at least one group of guards appears to be using undead to clear away the ruins they inhabit. This is type of thing where I want to have faith that my curiosity isn't just wasted on something that has no explanation.
DeleteYes, there is a definitely a rich BACKstory, but others are right that the story while playing the game is thin. That is just a consequence of a game where you spend most of the time exploring and fighting alone with only occasional NPCs to briefly talk to.
DeleteBut the backstory is there, it's just parcelled out very sparsely. You might get a bit from an item description, and then 10 hours later an NPC will say more, then 10 hours later you might find the actual location and see something notable there. But if you go on YouTube or the wiki it's all put together with in game references, so it's there to discover if you want to work for it.
But I should also add that there aren't clear answers for everything. Lots of it is ultimately clear, but some parts require speculation, and other parts are left as just mysteries. So you'll be disappointed if you want every detail tied up neatly -- the game certainly doesn't intend to do that.
Not having played it, from what little I gleaned here and there, it seems that the backstory is rich in detail, grandiosity, interconnectedness and a certain flavor of imagination. But on the other hand, there don't seem to be any concrete characters you could hang your sympathies on. In fact, adding likeable characters would ruin the dark, celtic mood. Accordingly, for some, it's all just so very dry, but for the right audience, it can be a rare treasure. Sounds similar to the effect of reading the Silmarillion, with its centuries-spanning history (though the similarities probably don't go that far).
DeleteThis is type of thing where I want to have faith that my curiosity isn't just wasted on something that has no explanation.
DeleteHey, it's "Lost", the video game!
I haven't gotten around to playing Elden Ring, but in the other Souls games a "balanced" build is generally a pretty bad idea. To the point where the characters that start at higher levels are often considered "trap" options because they have points in "wasted" states.
ReplyDeleteAs for the saving system, one thing you may not be considering is that it removes a ton of risk from a lot of things unless you habitually run around with a lot of liquid souls - when you die, you keep everything except a usually small quantity of experience that's been gained running around. This means that if you think you see something off a ledge, there is little risk in checking.
Based on reviews, the emulation problems with 'Doc the Destroyer' did indeed save you from playing an apparently quite weak mixture of primitive beat'em up and CYOA.
ReplyDeleteYes, looks like the attributes don't change. According to the instructions, they decide which choices show up. And 'Doc' is supposed to be a time traveller who just temporarily (pun intended) got stuck in this place and decided to help the locals.
I wonder who thought putting this on Steam (less than six months ago) was a good idea.
In Elden Ring, do not neglect vitality, especially if you're a new player. In fact, for a bit I'd level that almost exclusively. It's a lot less irritating when you're not one shot by everything. Also, learn to roll into enemy swings, rather than away from them. Many enemies punish rolling away.
ReplyDeleteI have definitely been neglecting that statistic, though I think it's "vigor" in this game.
DeleteThere's a certain amount of Elden Ring that builds upon things from previous From Software games, so if you're someone who has played a lot of their previous titles you'll have a far easier time getting started than anyone who is coming to the series late.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it is thankfully a lot more forgiving in the early stages than many other games they've made! You mention both the Tree Sentinel and Margit, which are early game bosses, but thankfully you can avoid them for quite some time and go find easier stuff to do. Contrasting to Dark Souls 3 for example, where each area has a tough boss fight and if you can't beat that boss you don't often have a lot of options about what to do except try and try again!
Three top tips I'd give for any new player are: 1. Your weapon level is very important, especially early on, so make sure to use those upgrade stones to give yourself a boost. 2. your vitality (health) stat will provide a big help, the armour in the game provides relatively minor damage reduction compared to the enemy and boss damage you see later in the game, so getting more health really helps a lot to be able to take a few hits without dying. 3. experiment with your spirit ash summons, there's a symbol that shows up in the bottom left of the screen when you can use them, looks like a door or a tombstone or something (basically every boss area, and some other areas). It can make some fights much easier, depending on the summon you choose, but can get you out of tricky spots that might otherwise frustrate. (you should get this ability early on from an NPC or from the shop at the hold if you miss them.)
"I'm never going to enjoy this system of quasi-saving where you get to keep your equipment when you die but not your experience unless you go and find it at the place you died."
ReplyDeleteThe wife and I are playing Grounded at the moment. If you die, you drop your backpack, which contains all the crafting resources you were carrying and your gear receives a bit of damage. You don't have to go get your backpack (which persists indefinitely), but often its worth the attempt. I find the system works really well, especially in conjunction with the revive mechanic: when you get KO'd an ally has 30 seconds to heal you.
It's a great game for couples. If your household has two decent computers you and Irene might get a kick out of it. The game is pretty lenient when it comes to player dexterity, despite containing real-time combat and jumping.
I feel like the first 2 were tagged as RPGs because of the fantasy elements.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of games in the last decade or so have relied too much on community documenting things that should have been clearer in game. In particular Souls rolling isn't clear about providing invincibility; if you don't know it's super hard and if you do it's very easy. Sekiro actually explains most things and it's easy.
"I don't know why Australians are so attracted to fiction involving post-apocalyptic wastelands."
ReplyDeleteI'd guess part of it has to do with the mythology (and reality) of The Outback. You and your vehicle surrounded by an immense and hostile landscape sparsely dotted with small towns.
My take on Elden Ring stats.
ReplyDeleteENDURANCE: If you don't have enough to equip what you want and be at medium load then this is the most important to increase. After that its priority drops way down. Stamina management is important, but having tons of extra stamina is not likely to be as much of a difference maker as other options.
VIGOR: On the other hand, being able to regularly survive one or two more hits so that you can heal or kill your enemy is going to be a huge difference maker. This should be one of your highest stats.
MIND: If you rely on magic for attacks you might need a lot of this, but other builds don't need much. I did enough so that I could use the most expensive spirit summons and that's been plenty for weapon skills and some incantations.
STR/DEX/INT/FAI/ARC: Pick one or two of these to be your attack stat(s) and use weapons/spells that go with it. (Not all combiantions are viable!) Along with Vigor most of your points should go here to qualify for better gear and do more damage.
Of the above five, whatever you don't pick should only get small investments if/when you need to reach certain weapon or spell qualifications. (Though I think a small amount of Faith, like 12, is useful for almost any build since it unlocks a handful of useful buffs and utility incantations.)
I loved how inscrutable Elden Ring was, and how there are a lot of solutions to secrets if you look hard enough. Coming from playing Skyrim a hundred times, it was refreshing to puzzle out solutions with the barest of ingame hints. I’m replaying Witcher 3 with all the hint and target icons off to try and get a similar experience
ReplyDeleteYou expressed opinions on a From Software game! I foresee this post getting a ton of replies.
ReplyDeleteMy general feeling on all the Souls games is that if you enjoy challenging boss fights, you'll love them. And if you're not into boss fights, those are not the games for you.
ReplyDeleteElden Ring has plenty of cool stuff in it, but it's all ultimately in the service of challenging boss fights as the centerpiece.
Dodging is the most effective defensive technique in Elden Ring, provided you are at 50% Load or lower (medium equip weight). A stat balanced character is harder to play than a specialist, since you'll likely be doing much less damage. 50 Vitality is required to not get one shot by later bosses, get Edurance up to be able to carry your gear at Medium speed or faster, then max your attack stats (Dex,Str,Faith,Int), with enough in mind to cast spells or spirit summons or weapon arts as you need
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for a clear story in Elden Ring you're going to be disappointed. Any information that gets meted out is either going to be from cryptic item descriptions or inferred from the environment. This style of FromSoft RPG is very purposefully designed as a communal experience where you talk to people and compare notes and theories. Is that a cop out? Yeah, definitely, but I get the impression that there is a canon plot that the developers chop up and selectively add references to which is more tolerable than just randomly adding lore. I hope it's not a trend that every game starts doing, but I am glad there is one series out there that leans so hard into that storytelling technique.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the world goes it's a dying world where the NPCs who haven't gone completely feral are only sane because they're delusionally hanging onto a past that's long since died. The vendors in past games are either people you run across who are willing to trade and aren't strictly vendors or people who are half insane. The vendors in Elden Ring seem to be from a very solitary race where it's natural for them to not interact with anyone for long periods of time and a lot of them do seem intentionally out of the way and surprised to see you. I think it's more of a contrivance this time around to populate the world with resource vendors and personally I'd agree that FromSoft has gone back to the "Ruined shell of a formerly great civilization" well a few too many times even if the scope of Elden Ring's world kept me hooked for 120+ hours.
And for what it's worth I didn't like Elden Ring all that much until a decent clip after beating the first major boss. The initial impression was that it was too much of the same except they had given up the tight level design for big empty maps speckled with really terrible three corridor dungeons with lazy copy-paste bosses. I still feel like that's true to a certain extent, but eventually I'd felt like I had clearer picture in my mind of what I though was going on that felt some investment and I had enough places to explore at any given time that I could always go somewhere else for a change of scenery.
DeleteI'm not so much looking for a clear story as for a reason to believe that a clear story actually exists behind the scenes. I appreciate your thoughts on the setting. I wouldn't mind a game with ER's mechanics but that takes place within a functioning civilization.
DeleteThe only Souls game (this includes Bloodborne) that I felt really presented a coherent narrative at the start was the first Dark Souls. That game's opening cinematic was pretty straightforward - there were lots of dragons, some guys with powerful souls killed all the dragons and became gods, now the world's ending and there's a bunch of Undead around.
DeleteWitcher 3, but with Elden Ring bosses and combat. Now THAT would be a game!
DeleteF#$% Elden Ring. ;)
ReplyDeleteI basically knew what it was but thought it would at least have a FEW things in common with other games I liked (like villages with non-hostile NPC's to converse with and obtain SQ's and a broader economy). It did not. Quit after about 20 hrs and I'm fine with that.
I can definitely see why some people like it though. It is a extremely concentrated version of what many people find to be fun in other games, but find that those games have very little of it (like technical active combat that's actually very punishing and difficult).
It gets old tho.
Elden Ring is one of my favorite games and I have completed it 3 times now, but the problems you lay out are true. The balance at the start of the game is stupid, the reasoning for plonking the Tree Sentinel right there to "encourage players to explore" is I believe a poor one, and then there are big glowing lines encouraging you to go straight to Margott, when in reality Margott should be about the 15 to 20th boss you hit after you explore the starting area. Also, there is an item helping you with the Margott fight that is from an NPC in a somewhat hidden cave and you would have to look at item descriptions carefully to realise you should get it. Poor design all around.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the story in the game is both hidden and not great anyhow, unless you watch some youtube videos from people who have pieced together random lore pieces from item descriptions you are just going from place to place slaughtering unknown bosses. Of course, exploring the beautiful lands going from place to place slaughtering bosses is unbelieveably good fun, but people shouldn't pretend the story is good when it's almost non-existent.
But congratulation on killing Margott, that's a major sticking point and the game will get considerably easier from here. Once you start levelling up your summons the game actually becomes very easy in the mid-game, before ramping up again at the end. I hope you enjoy it overall, it's a beautiful game despite it's flaws.
After Margit, I got stuck forever on Godrick the Grafted, but I finally beat him last night.
DeleteBut the phrase "level up your summons" indicates there's at least one gameeplay element I've overlooked.
Mild hint spoiler for that:
DeleteLbh arrq gb zrrg n fcrpvsvp punenpgre (juvpu lbh unir cebonoyl zrg) jub pna yriry hc fhzzbaf sbe lbh.
Slight additional hint:
Ure anzr vf Ebqrevxn
That may help eventually, but right now I don't even know what "summonses" are. There's a way I can summon people or creatures to help me in combat?
DeleteI'd Google it but I'm trying to avoid spoilers. I guess I don't mind on this issue, though, as it appears I've missed something big.
DeleteHopefully you've gotten the ability to summon the horse? If so, use the map to teleport back to the Church of Elleh near the beginning. There should be a character waiting nearby that will give you the ability to summon spirits to help you in battle. You can only do it at certain places though and that will be indicated by what looks like a ghostly tombstone on the left side of the screen.
DeleteMeh, I beat Margit at level 17 and was maybe after 3 mini bosses. There's no right way to play, so long as you use your skills well.
DeleteThey're referred to in game as "Ashes".
DeleteDid you use the NPC summon for either of the bosses? Each one has a bit of story you can find as to why they're there, and they can potentially make things easier as it makes the boss concentrate on something else for a bit. It does increase their hit points, though.
DeleteHaha, you don't get to save scum in any 'Souls games. Decisions and choices matter. The same is true with Elden Ring. Think carefully before you do anything. Also, that is patently untrue that the dodge(rolling) does not work. Many attacks can be dodged with roll if you time them right, while some require jumping(ground focused ones). Experienced players never use shields and we always roll often.
ReplyDeleteRe: story, I'd highly recommend watching Vaatividya on YouTube. Even if you have no interest in actually playing any Fromsoft games themselves, his videos on their lore are amazing.
ReplyDeleteI don’t comment frequently admittedly, and I’m a little hesitant to comment on the difficulty of FromSoft’s games because my general stance is “most camps have a valid point in either direction”. That said I think it’s important to consider developer goals. The Souls games (and this has been explicitly stated by Miyazaki, the creative lead) are literally a fantasy story, but thematically a story about suffering and catharsis, which is an experience he wants conveyed via gameplay. I think there’s a certain merit in difficulty options (particularly with Sekiro, since it’s much more tightly tuned), but the hostility of the games is a plot element as much if not moreso than any cutscene or dialogue.
ReplyDeleteI tend to be far more critical of games that fail to do what the developer desired than games that fail to do what the player desired, admittedly (which is why I applaud Death Stranding even though I’m not a fan myself).
On Legacy of the Wizard and the Dragon Slayer series turning into not-RPGs: the sixth game, Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes, is a full-on turn-based RPG, and was so popular that The Legend of Heroes was spun off into its own series. With the exception of a couple of Xanadu spin offs, The Legend of Heroes series, is the part of Dragon Slayer that remains in production to this day. For the past 20 years, the series has been in a long-running arc known as the Trails series, that in turn has spawned several sub-series of its own set in different countries on a continent called Zemuria. The various games all fit together and reference each other, with characters crossing over. It's a level of continuity that gives Britannia a run for its money.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are finding Elden Ring's backstory and setting to be quite complex and difficult to understand. FromSoftware games are known for their deep lore and complex narratives, and it's not uncommon for players to feel a bit lost when they first start playing.
ReplyDeleteThe game's introductory cinematic, while visually stunning, may not provide a lot of context or explanation for the various terms and concepts it introduces. This can make it difficult to understand the game's lore and world-building, especially if you are new to FromSoftware's games.
ChatGPT vibes.
DeleteI had the same reaction. The profile doesn't like to anything, so I'm not sure what the endgame would be.
DeleteI had the impression of Elden Ring being a mindless arcade game. The only thing you do is killing swarms of enemies, but it even doen't matter, since they just respawn.
ReplyDeleteI ended up rage-uninstalling it, so you won't have any more updates on it from me.
DeleteSpeaking of Elden Ring, this hit home:
Deletehttps://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/elden-ring-or-tenure-track-professor
The funniest thing I have read in ages!
DeleteI’ve gone through this and escaped to become a museum curator where I am not only in my personal Tanelorn, but actually even found time to finish my painting habilitation.
About Doc the Destroyer. I played ZX Spectrum version briefly yesterday. A couple of minutes from the start I found a hermit who gave Doc the exoskeleton and said it improves strength by 5 points. So there is some character development.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to try ZX Spectrum version. Notably, it is the version being sold on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2079260/Doc_the_Destroyer/
Remember, inventory-based improvements don't count for me. They have to be innate, awarded through experience or leveling.
DeleteI understand. But as far as I can tell, the game doesn't have an actual inventory, so it may count as innate.
DeleteThe manual for the ZX Spectrum version does promises stat-based outcomes for encounters.
"How well you do in the multi-choice strategy game will depend very much on how you have set Doc's characteristics. This is because the choices available to the player are dependent on the attributes you have chosen. For example, if you have set Doc's luck to a high value, you may be given the option of sneaking past a guard. However, if Doc has his luck at a low value then he will not be able to sneak past and this choice wail not be available. (Consequently you will probably have to fight past the guard at that section.) However, setting luck to a high value may require other characteristics to be set to a low value. You have to take the good with the bad!"