Sif

[druss]

Alright, got a fair amount done today - although I ignored your advice and went ahead and did the DLC instead. Not intentionally, I went in there looking for some soul items and got a bit carried away.

Artorias is great. Difficult! I had to get nearly naked and play it more like an Elden Ring boss, as my knight armour and shield wasn't doing me any good. Once I did that, it became a lot more manageable. Solid fight.

Manus I got first try, somehow. I did summon Sif because we all like him, and I enjoyed playing alongside a dog with a sword. I think I mostly lucked my way through it, getting up close and whacking away at his legs. I got hit a lot but he didn't seem to do all that much damage - dunno if the Silver Knight's Armour has any particular resistances to him. Good fight, I just feel bad that I didn't really get to learn it.

I think I found Kalameet's arena before Artorias - at least I found a little lakebed where I promptly got incinerated. I'll have to have a look tomorrow.

In the base game, I went and found Gwyndolin. I'm probably a bit overleveled for him by now, but he did manage to kill me once. He sounded like a right plummy wanker, so I wasn't sad to put him down.

Onto the fucking Demon Ruins, then.

Nice one on one shotting Manus! If you have decent HP and some poise then he isn't too bad (still hard though so still very good achievement getting him first time), I think his notorious difficulty is due to how difficult he is with a mage build (which trivialises almost every other boss) and also how hard he is if doing a level 1 run. He was the only boss that I couldn't get anywhere near to beating as a level 1 so had to do crossbow cheese before the fog wall to complete that run.

I've never tried Artorias as a sword and board, first time I just face tanked him with Havel set which was fine, on subsequent playthroughs I just dodged which was much more fun and satisfying. Never found him super challenging, Kalameet was much harder for me (you will need to grab a key from Oolacile township and go speak to an NPC to trigger the proper fight, it is possible to beat him another way but it is very tedious and not fun).

Did you find Gwyndolin by triggering the cut scene by shooting Gwynevere in Anor Londo? Love that cutscene.

Good luck with the Demon ruins. I maintain that it's one of the best looking areas in DS1 which made it enjoyable enough for me apart from the bosses.

[Noodle Lizard]

Yeah, I've had to look a few things up (who would've naturally figured out how to enter the DLC?), so I knew that attacking Gwynevere would get me to Gwyndolin. Still took a few spins of the staircase to find him, though, and the runback was no fun at all as I'd long since dispatched the firekeeper there. Thankfully I only had to do it once.

Unlike most other things in the game, Artorias hits hard and then hits you hard again immediately after. His windows are there, but it's more mechanically demanding than any other boss I've faced so far (except O&S). Similar to Sir Alonne and Fume Knight, going in the buff dramatically improved things, which seems to be a theme for the tough humanoid bosses in these games (Malenia almost requires a light-roll to do it properly). I'm feeling like I robbed myself of Manus, but summoning Sif just seemed to be the right thing to do (although I never actually saw her doing anything).

I generally get my Vigor up to 40 as a priority in these games, so perhaps that helped. The rest of my build is sort of shit, though; I thought I was going for Strength, but my weapons always seemed to improve more from increasing Dex, so now I'm at an awkward (roughly) 35/25 split with absolutely no investment in magic. Still, between my fully upgraded Claymore and Black Knight Sword, I'm doing consistently good damage, and DS2 taught me to bring a bow everywhere which made Oolacile a breeze.

[Thursday]

I had to get nearly naked and play it

Whatever works for you man, but I don't know if we all need to know this.

[Noodle Lizard]

Whatever works for you man, but I don't know if we all need to know this.

Yeah, sorry. You remember that bit in The Aviator where Howard Hughes has locked himself away in a screening room, pacing around in the nip, yelling to himself and pissing in bottles?

[druss]

I generally get my Vigor up to 40 as a priority in these games, so perhaps that helped. The rest of my build is sort of shit, though; I thought I was going for Strength, but my weapons always seemed to improve more from increasing Dex, so now I'm at an awkward (roughly) 35/25 split with absolutely no investment in magic. Still, between my fully upgraded Claymore and Black Knight Sword, I'm doing consistently good damage, and DS2 taught me to bring a bow everywhere which made Oolacile a breeze.

Claymore and BKS are both very viable. Actually every weapon is viable which I like about the earlier games in the series. I would feel confident in beating DS1 with any weapon (in fact if anyone wants to throw a random suggestion out there I think I will end up playing it again for the other thread) whereas I literally couldn't beat Malenia with the build I arrived at her with and have currently only beaten her with Rivera of blood and blasphemous blade. I feel like weapon strength is more of a factor in Elden Ring although I will complete it with a starting weapon before summer.

Looking forward to hearing about Demon Ruins.

[Noodle Lizard]

I literally couldn't beat Malenia with the build I arrived at her with and have currently only beaten her with Rivera of blood and blasphemous blade.

Malenia's weird. She really is built more like a Sekiro boss. The dodge-timing and counters are very specific and, much like Sekiro, once you've got them all down she becomes very intuitive and ... I'd never say "easy", but something you can confidently dance with. Once you're over that hurdle and you know exactly how to dodge/counter every move, she's incredibly fun to do all kinds of stupid challenges with (my fondest co-op memory was three summons with torches only).

But she's so unique that learning her doesn't necessarily make you a better player. I'm still fairly shit at these games, and even LetMeSoloHer gave up on Dark Souls 2 because they found it too hard.

[earl_sleek]

Artorias is great. Difficult! I had to get nearly naked and play it more like an Elden Ring boss, as my knight armour and shield wasn't doing me any good. Once I did that, it became a lot more manageable. Solid fight.

I had a similar experience with Artorias on my first playthrough. The Elite Knight set and +15 longsword had been serving me well up until him, but I just couldn't beat him. After a break when TOTK came out I decided to experiment and eventually beat him by going naked with the zweihander. Kept the zwei for the rest of the game, Kalameet was a bit tricky but Manus & Gwyn went down without much trouble.

I'm near the end of a sorcery based run atm, Artorias fell pretty easily before my crystal soul masses and soul spears, Kalameet again giving me a bit more trouble. Haven't tried Manus yet & only Gwyn left after him - not gonna bother with Gwyndolin or Priscilla this time.

[Noodle Lizard]

I'm near the end of a sorcery based run atm, Artorias fell pretty easily before my crystal soul masses and soul spears, Kalameet again giving me a bit more trouble. Haven't tried Manus yet & only Gwyn left after him - not gonna bother with Gwyndolin or Priscilla this time.

So how is sorcery in DS1 then? I haven't quite figured it out, but it seems like you get a set number of uses for each spell with no (obvious) way of recharging them like the manna bar in DS3 onwards. How viable is that, considering the distance between bonfires?

[druss]

So how is sorcery in DS1 then? I haven't quite figured it out, but it seems like you get a set number of uses for each spell with no (obvious) way of recharging them like the manna bar in DS3 onwards. How viable is that, considering the distance between bonfires?

I finished a run using only sorcery. Sequence broke a little at the start to get some extra sorcery charges from the blacksmith in new Londo but other than that you can go through the game normally. Manus was tough but most bosses were easier (Priscilla was interesting having to free aim sorceries!).

Malenia's weird. She really is built more like a Sekiro boss. The dodge-timing and counters are very specific and, much like Sekiro, once you've got them all down she becomes very intuitive and ... I'd never say "easy", but something you can confidently dance with. Once you're over that hurdle and you know exactly how to dodge/counter every move, she's incredibly fun to do all kinds of stupid challenges with (my fondest co-op memory was three summons with torches only).

But she's so unique that learning her doesn't necessarily make you a better player. I'm still fairly shit at these games, and even LetMeSoloHer gave up on Dark Souls 2 because they found it too hard.

I'm looking forward to fighting her again, even with the OP builds it still took ages but was a fun fight.

[Schlippy]

So how is sorcery in DS1 then? I haven't quite figured it out, but it seems like you get a set number of uses for each spell with no (obvious) way of recharging them like the manna bar in DS3 onwards. How viable is that, considering the distance between bonfires?

Sorcery is flat out busted in DS1, the boosting items stack in a cumulative way so once you've got all the best gear and the crystal spells you can one/two shot most mobs in the game, and all but a handful of bosses become trivial. Couple it with pyromancy (which scales purely off your glove, no stats required) and you're playing on easy mode fo sho.

[earl_sleek]

As druss alludes to, with prior knowledge of the game you can pick up the most useful sorceries in a fairly logical progression. I think it would be very frustrating in a first play, though.

You can get multiple copies of many spells - not the most powerful ones, but you're saving them for bosses anyway. You get extra casts for equipping them so it's just a case of knowing where they are and having enough spell slots. It's all about the Attunement, baby! And like Schlippy says, you can back it up with Pyromancy, though I haven't really found the need. Also, a Magic or Enchanted weapon can be a decent backup if you've got high Intelligence (even though I've got low Dex my enchanted falchion tears through most enemies like wet tissue paper at this point).

[Chollis]

As is tradition on my first Souls playthrough, I seem to have "killed" or failed almost all of the questline NPCs. I looked a few of them up after I found the corpses of Anri and Yoel in Anor Londo and they are hilariously convoluted and easy to fuck up, surely most people don't progress these all correctly without guidance at nearly every step. I have no idea where Patches is now either. I did succeed with Siegward the onion knight, the reward was him auto-joining and completely trivializing Yhorm the Giant, one-shotted without me having to use an Estus, which was kind of a shame. Or is Yhorm just a gimmick boss regardless?

Anyway, Profaned Capital was really fucking cool despite the underwhelming end. Made it up to the cathedral at Anor Londo, got proper jump-scared and then wrecked by the curse beast thingy in there. See there's a fog wall too so will tackle that tomorrow.

[Noodle Lizard]

I have now completed Dark Souls (Remastered). Scattered final thoughts.

The Bed of Chaos is every bit as shit as I'd been led to believe. State of that. Luckily I'd already seen the "method", so it only took me a few runs getting knocked into the abyss. Nothing good to say about that whole area, to be honest. Felt very much like the "ah this'll do" areas of DS2.

I got the Sunlight Maggot to make Tomb of the Giants bearable, but it still isn't really. A couple of good moments early on with glowing skeleton eyes in the darkness, but then it's just annoying and goes on for ages. If there is a bonfire between the Catacombs blacksmith and Nito I didn't find it, and I thought I'd explored pretty carefully. Luckily I didn't die to Nito, so it was a one-and-done.

Duke's Archives was fine, although it's a type of level that they later iterated upon in DS3 and Bloodborne, so the novelty was probably lost on me. The Crystal Cave bit ... frankly, I didn't explore too carefully and reached Seath before I knew it. One-and-done. I was around level 90 by this point, so possibly overleveled.

I went back to the DLC and ... killed Kalameet first try, which I wasn't expecting. Either I'm just familiar enough with From's dragon fights that he was fairly easy to read (and his fire attacks are more forgiving than, say, Midir or even Nameless King's chicken) or, again, I was somewhat overleveled. I was down to my last couple of flasks out of 20, mind.

Then I remembered Priscilla from the Painted World, so I went back to get her. She, of all people, managed to kill me twice. Figure that one out! Fun enough fight, though, and interesting to see where the idea of Friede likely originated.

Loved the Kiln with all the Black Knights. Loved Gwyn too, although sadly I'd just used the Knights to practice parrying and realised that he too could be trivialised by this; the parry frames are more forgiving than any other From game, I think! Wish I'd tried sooner.

So I Homewarded out before I did too much damage and tried again shieldless. Easy enough by this point, but a good fight nonetheless.

I missed a bunch of quests, even though I thought I'd done well keeping up with Solaire and Siegmeyer et al. A lot of folk disappeared from the Shrine and I never found them again. I might use NG+ to focus on some of those, if they're worth doing. Made sure to upgrade some of my magic stuff for the next run as well.

Overall, liked it more than DS2, and while it probably deserves more credit for originality than DS3 and Elden Ring ... I don't know if I could say I enjoyed it all as much. In some ways it's better than both, but I don't know if it's as fun. I'll have to think on it. I maintain that Bloodborne reigns supreme, since it sort of combines the best elements of both.

I can't fairly rank the bosses without trying some of them a few more times, but I can confidently say Bed of Chaos is the worst. Scorching hot take, I know. Artorias is probably my favourite.

Liked it. Good.

[Noodle Lizard]

As is tradition on my first Souls playthrough, I seem to have "killed" or failed almost all of the questline NPCs. I looked a few of them up after I found the corpses of Anri and Yoel in Anor Londo and they are hilariously convoluted and easy to fuck up, surely most people don't progress these all correctly without guidance at nearly every step.

I didn't even find corpses on my first run! People just disappeared. No worries.

I did succeed with Siegward the onion knight, the reward was him auto-joining and completely trivializing Yhorm the Giant, one-shotted without me having to use an Estus, which was kind of a shame. Or is Yhorm just a gimmick boss regardless?

Like a less good version of Rykard in Elden Ring, he's a tough boss who's trivialised by a special weapon found in his arena. You didn't miss much.

Anyway, Profaned Capital was really fucking cool despite the underwhelming end. Made it up to the cathedral at Anor Londo, got proper jump-scared and then wrecked by the curse beast thingy in there. See there's a fog wall too so will tackle that tomorrow.

Good fight coming up! You've got a solid run of bosses until the end now. I'm assuming you have the DLCs too?

[druss]

I have now completed Dark Souls (Remastered). Scattered final thoughts.

The Bed of Chaos is every bit as shit as I'd been led to believe. State of that. Luckily I'd already seen the "method", so it only took me a few runs getting knocked into the abyss. Nothing good to say about that whole area, to be honest. Felt very much like the "ah this'll do" areas of DS2.

I got the Sunlight Maggot to make Tomb of the Giants bearable, but it still isn't really. A couple of good moments early on with glowing skeleton eyes in the darkness, but then it's just annoying and goes on for ages. If there is a bonfire between the Catacombs blacksmith and Nito I didn't find it, and I thought I'd explored pretty carefully. Luckily I didn't die to Nito, so it was a one-and-done.

Duke's Archives was fine, although it's a type of level that they later iterated upon in DS3 and Bloodborne, so the novelty was probably lost on me. The Crystal Cave bit ... frankly, I didn't explore too carefully and reached Seath before I knew it. One-and-done. I was around level 90 by this point, so possibly overleveled.

I went back to the DLC and ... killed Kalameet first try, which I wasn't expecting. Either I'm just familiar enough with From's dragon fights that he was fairly easy to read (and his fire attacks are more forgiving than, say, Midir or even Nameless King's chicken) or, again, I was somewhat overleveled. I was down to my last couple of flasks out of 20, mind.

Then I remembered Priscilla from the Painted World, so I went back to get her. She, of all people, managed to kill me twice. Figure that one out! Fun enough fight, though, and interesting to see where the idea of Friede likely originated.

Loved the Kiln with all the Black Knights. Loved Gwyn too, although sadly I'd just used the Knights to practice parrying and realised that he too could be trivialised by this; the parry frames are more forgiving than any other From game, I think! Wish I'd tried sooner.

So I Homewarded out before I did too much damage and tried again shieldless. Easy enough by this point, but a good fight nonetheless.

I missed a bunch of quests, even though I thought I'd done well keeping up with Solaire and Siegmeyer et al. A lot of folk disappeared from the Shrine and I never found them again. I might use NG+ to focus on some of those, if they're worth doing. Made sure to upgrade some of my magic stuff for the next run as well.

Overall, liked it more than DS2, and while it probably deserves more credit for originality than DS3 and Elden Ring ... I don't know if I could say I enjoyed it all as much. In some ways it's better than both, but I don't know if it's as fun. I'll have to think on it. I maintain that Bloodborne reigns supreme, since it sort of combines the best elements of both.

I can't fairly rank the bosses without trying some of them a few more times, but I can confidently say Bed of Chaos is the worst. Scorching hot take, I know. Artorias is probably my favourite.

Liked it. Good.

Good stuff. I think the NPC quests are definitely worth another run at as they are the most consistently good in any From game (but no less esoteric, for better or worse). Solaire, Siegmeyer, Lautrec, Rhea and Petrus are all top tier. Probably worth doing a sorcery build if you are going to do Logan's quest.

I can see why the Duke's might lose a bit of impact after DS3 and Bloodborne. Bloodborne did a great take on it, but DS3 was another lazy "slap a DS1 sounding name and theme on an area". Probably not as jarring if you play 3 before 1 though.

[Noodle Lizard]

Good stuff. I think the NPC quests are definitely worth another run at as they are the most consistently good in any From game (but no less esoteric, for better or worse). Solaire, Siegmeyer, Lautrec, Rhea and Petrus are all top tier. Probably worth doing a sorcery build if you are going to do Logan's quest.

Ah, I did Lautrec, if indeed it finishes when you invade him and his mates in Anor Londo. Solaire was just hanging out at the Sunlight Altar before I finished the game, but I hadn't seen him since O&S.

I can see why the Duke's might lose a bit of impact after DS3 and Bloodborne. Bloodborne did a great take on it, but DS3 was another lazy "slap a DS1 sounding name and theme on an area". Probably not as jarring if you play 3 before 1 though.

Yeah, I realise I've basically played these in completely the wrong order to judge them on their own merits, which is a bit of a shame. Then again, the inverse seems to be true for some people who started with DeS/DS1 and can't appreciate some of the later games for what they are. The Bonfireside Chat podcast was a good example of this, with one of those guys seeming to hate every minute of their coverage of BB/DS3/Sekiro.

[oggyraiding]

Duke's Archives is the only post-Lordvessel area I like. New Londo Ruins is horrible with the ghosts, Catacombs is alright but Tomb of Giants is a chore, and Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are pure shite. At the time I could deal with them all, but I do avoid replaying the game because I know 75% of the late game areas are wank.

When I think of Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith, Demon Ruins from DS3, and Iron Keep, I think From's lava levels are even worse than their swamp levels.

[Noodle Lizard]

When I think of Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith, Demon Ruins from DS3, and Iron Keep, I think From's lava levels are even worse than their swamp levels.

Ooo I dunno! Volcano Manor's cool. At least with a lava level, they rarely expect you to spend any time in the lava itself, whereas something like Farron Keep is basically there to check you've bought enough Poison Moss (and then take it all from you).

Lake of Rot is the worst example of all, combining a vast and potent poison lake with lavaish aesthetics. Terrible place.

[Chollis]

I can see why people who had played the Souls trilogy beforehand were less enamoured with Elden Ring than Noodle and I were, I'm recognising so many of the same models and environmental touches (e.g half-melted skeletons on the floor with their hands raised to the sky) across the titles, whereas for me basically everything about ER was incredibly fresh and unlike any RPG I'd played up to that point.

Probably one for the other thread, and it's an obvious one, but one of ER's strongest points must be the build variety and sheer multitude of ways you could choose to approach combat. On the other hand, I've never really tried a magic/caster build in these games or even delved that deep into Faith so my experience on that score is fairly limited, maybe ER wasn't that much more varied from the previous titles. DS3 for example looks like it has a shit-ton of cool spells that I'm never going to try.

[druss]

Ah, I did Lautrec, if indeed it finishes when you invade him and his mates in Anor Londo. Solaire was just hanging out at the Sunlight Altar before I finished the game, but I hadn't seen him since O&S.

Yeah, I realise I've basically played these in completely the wrong order to judge them on their own merits, which is a bit of a shame. Then again, the inverse seems to be true for some people who started with DeS/DS1 and can't appreciate some of the later games for what they are. The Bonfireside Chat podcast was a good example of this, with one of those guys seeming to hate every minute of their coverage of BB/DS3/Sekiro.

Not sure what happened with Solaire, did you chat to him before O and S? He should rock up just after centipede demon.

Relistening to the bonfire side chat podcast at the moment actually. Just getting to the end of the DS2 season which they were very positive about. If I recall correctly, their issues with Bloodborne I mostly agreed with but I didn't find it spoiled the game (it didn't for them either to be fair). When it got to DS3 they seemed to let its deficiencies ruin the experience for them which is a shame as there is a lot of great stuff there, and a bit surprising too as they didn't let the negatives of DS2 spoil their experience.

[Noodle Lizard]

Not sure what happened with Solaire, did you chat to him before O and S? He should rock up just after centipede demon.

I needed him for O&S! But I never saw him again after that until he turned up at the Sunlight Altar right at the end. He wasn't in the shortcut in Demon Ruins. Who knows? I'm doing a NG+ to polish off some quests, but apparently I'm fucking it all up as I've already lost Siegmeyer and none of that group of travelers ever turned up to Firelink. Oops. At least I'll do the Kaathe version of the ending.

[The F Bomb]

I can see why people who had played the Souls trilogy beforehand were less enamoured with Elden Ring than Noodle and I were, I'm recognising so many of the same models and environmental touches (e.g half-melted skeletons on the floor with their hands raised to the sky) across the titles, whereas for me basically everything about ER was incredibly fresh and unlike any RPG I'd played up to that point.

That must have been amazing, but yeah. I loved ER while I was playing it but it felt like a compilation and it left me with no distinct emotion or memory. I also don't think the open world was an improvement. A very significant portion of the playtime was of no consequence or intensity, a lot of roaming and quite janky platforming. That may have made it more approachable but it took away the drive. Exploration was certainly rewarded and there are lots of incredible areas settings, but there's also a vast amount of nothing much which you can't really interact with.

If you read the manga, Berserk, you will also see how much has been simply lifted. That was a moment for me. Demon's and Dark seem very inspired by the sensibility and philosophy of Berserk and adapt a number of elements. DS3 and ER just nick a load of designs.

[Noodle Lizard]

The thing about Elden Ring is that you could turn it into a (perfectly good) Souls game by just ignoring a lot of the open world. The legacy dungeons alone would be solid, with occasional jaunts to do questlines or pick up items. But the open world is insanely detailed, I've never really understood the criticism that it's "empty", whereas I would say that about large portions of Breath of the Wild, for instance.

In the other Souls games, unless you're mad skilled you'll often come to a difficulty spike where you're not doing nearly enough damage and are getting killed far too easily. The most effective way of leveling up in these instances is to "farm" areas you've already done. Elden Ring fixes this issue by having a huge world available to explore, meaning it's very unlikely you'll ever be stuck doing the same thing over and over, and often you'll get sucked into areas you didn't know existed, coming across enemies you've never seen etc. That all works very well, I think.

THAT ALL BEING SAID ... I don't think Elden Ring is my favourite overall. You're right, there's something the other games have that it doesn't, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Bloodborne is probably still my favourite, it seems to get the most right.

[druss]

I think I prefer the more streamlined worlds of pre-Elden Ring soulslikes but I definitely didn't find that it felt empty. Each map feels packed with interesting areas and whenever the caves/catacombs/mines start to feel samey I would tend to find myself in one with a twist to keep things fresh. My only real "complaint" is that it's almost too big. If I want to do a full playthrough of every boss and area, picking up every item etc I can do so in previous games in around 15-30 hours depending on the game. Elden Ring would take at least twice this amount of time. I think I'd rather they released two more streamlined soulslikes after Sekiro.

Still adore Elden Ring though and if was only ever able to play one souls game again it would probably be Elden Ring, especially as the DLC is going to be at least the size of Dark Souls 3 judging by the development time.

[druss]

The thing about Elden Ring is that you could turn it into a (perfectly good) Souls game by just ignoring a lot of the open world. The legacy dungeons alone would be solid, with occasional jaunts to do questlines or pick up items.

I might try this for next playthrough.

[Thursday]

I liked the open world of Elden Ring, it did create something different for Souls games.

It did sour a bit though when you realize every continent pretty much follows the same formula though

Always a couple of caves/catacombs, a shack, a ruin, a church, a camp, a rise, etc. Always one of each of these and not much else. I think I would have liked to have seen a few scraps of remaining non settlements/villages (The pot town or parts of Volcano Manor I suppose.) It's not supposed to be a complete apocalypse where most people are zombified husks, but that's how it feels.
 

[no no natus natus no]

The thing about Elden Ring is that you could turn it into a (perfectly good) Souls game by just ignoring a lot of the open world. The legacy dungeons alone would be solid, with occasional jaunts to do questlines or pick up items.

Sort of doing this with my current (third) playthrough and really enjoying it.

Doing a strength build for the first time and fuck me it's a bit more fun when you can wallop things back isn't it.

Particularly enjoying Leyndell this time round, I sort of bombed through before because I didn't really feel confident fighting the knights and it felt sort of pointlessly sprawling rather than being nice and tight and looping like Stormveil. But the mood and vibe of it has really clicked this time round, creeping round the empty streets, it's a weird blend of dungeon and overworld.

[Mister Six]

The thing about Elden Ring is that you could turn it into a (perfectly good) Souls game by just ignoring a lot of the open world. The legacy dungeons alone would be solid, with occasional jaunts to do questlines or pick up items. But the open world is insanely detailed, I've never really understood the criticism that it's "empty", whereas I would say that about large portions of Breath of the Wild, for instance.

In the other Souls games, unless you're mad skilled you'll often come to a difficulty spike where you're not doing nearly enough damage and are getting killed far too easily. The most effective way of leveling up in these instances is to "farm" areas you've already done. Elden Ring fixes this issue by having a huge world available to explore, meaning it's very unlikely you'll ever be stuck doing the same thing over and over, and often you'll get sucked into areas you didn't know existed, coming across enemies you've never seen etc. That all works very well, I think.

THAT ALL BEING SAID ... I don't think Elden Ring is my favourite overall. You're right, there's something the other games have that it doesn't, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Bloodborne is probably still my favourite, it seems to get the most right.

I'm not the kind of guy who particularly enjoys hammering against the same wall until it eventually crumbles, I'm more of an easygoing sort of player. Is Elden Ring the sort of game where I can level up enough, or exploit a particular build, that it isn't punishingly hard for someone who's a bit shit?

Also, can I complete the game without killing the big dog?

[Chollis]

I'm not the kind of guy who particularly enjoys hammering against the same wall until it eventually crumbles, I'm more of an easygoing sort of player. Is Elden Ring the sort of game where I can level up enough, or exploit a particular build, that it isn't punishingly hard for someone who's a bit shit?

Yes definitely, and it's the main reason ER is considered the most accessible. Very easy to step away from a boss and go level up a ton if he's too hard. There's even lots of cheesy/exploity farms to lvl up obscenely quickly if you're so inclined.

[simon templar]

I found elden ring fairly easy once i hit the mid game because without grinding it always felt like I was over levelled. So just keep upgrading your weapons and you'll be fine. This did mean when I got to the end I didn't know how to git good against the final bosses because i felt like I'd never learned how to play the game. Fortunately by that time it had completely over stayed its welcome so I just sacked it off after a couple of tries.

As for the map I sometimes found it underwhelming. Maybe it was the shit draw distances on the PS4 but I'd always get to a bit where I'd see it was supposed to look beautiful but it always felt game-y in a way that's hard to put my finger on. The graphics in Sekiro weren't anything special but it had an art style elden ring lacked.

All that said, I enjoyed it and sank 80+ hours into it.