Hello and Welcome back to my blog!
I wanted to play the original Dark Souls and to be honest I even tried it a few years ago but just after the first tutorial boss, I knew it was not for me. I would get frustrated and not play it. So, I never continued that... but since Elden Ring came out a few years ago, I wanted to play it and this time with more patience.
This led me to install Elden Ring and this time, I liked the tutorial section much more than the last one. The graphics are amazing, but the UI and controls took me a long time to adjust.
I chose the Samurai for my build, didn't know what to go for... and the character looked cool so I went with it.
But wait a moment... how good the narrator was during that opening cutscene. That gave me goosebumps and pumped me up for the coming adventure.
As soon as we got out of the cave into Limgrave, we were presented with the vast open world. What a beautiful sight it was. One of my reasons to start my Souls-like game journey with this game is because of these polished and modern graphics.
We met our first proper boss in the game, I think. A huge guy on an armoured horse with a big ass spear and shield. I knew I couldn't take it down just yet. But I still challenged him to see how quickly it finished us off. It was pretty quickly. This was the time I was second-guessing my decision to play the game. xD
It was a vast open area so we could choose to go anywhere we wanted. I just went to the swamps and cleared a basement room with a bunch of rats. (They killed me once in the process too). And when I opened the big chest in that dungeon, I was teleported to the edge of the entire map. Wtf! I was expecting a huge bundle of runes or a good weapon but not teleporting to another place.
I was in a mine where some guys were just mining crystals. They were much stronger than the guys at the swamps so they gave me a good beating. But I managed to sneak out of that place. Fighting against them was just futile. I will not be taking unnecessary fights, especially this early in the game. Everything in this game wants to see you dead. Bugs, giants, weird plants, rodents and what not.
But I would die again and again for views like this, look at the beautiful sky!
This giant, stomach-less, ugly monster was an optional enemy. I didn't have to kill it but I took the challenge to kill it. I had to learn and get better at combat and have to take on bigger fights...right?
It took me about 5 tries to kill this one. I thought it would drop a nice item but nope. It just gave me a lot of runes.
The world looks very mysterious with a lot to learn. So many items to collect and gather as well. I took a walk on the beach and found many weird enemies.
The entire place is in ruins and I will be going towards the big castle I see in front of me. But before going straight in, it is better to explore more and see how I can upgrade my stuff.
Finding someone who doesn't want to kill you at first sight is quite rare here. The merchant sold me some recipes and much-needed arrows!
Later I found a cave where I had to fight a weird rat-looking enemy. I forgot to take a screenshot as it was an intense boss fight. Took me multiple attempts to kill it.
My favourite part of the game so far is sneaking up to an enemy and backstabbing them. It deals a massive amount of damage with a cool animation. LOVE IT!
The soldiers in front of the castle entrance gave me a tough time, especially that one guy with a massive shield and spear. All the others were not bad. And it was good to see that you can still sneak around to kill them one by one. I love the stealth approach and backstabbing them is fun and very productive.
As I was starting to wonder, how will my character would level up. That was solved quickly as I met this girl. I don't remember her name now but she gave us her horse-like thing to us and now we can level up our character.
I want to have more strength and health along with stamina. Stamina seems to be very valuable in this game.
My first impressions are positive of this game. And I don't think it is as hard as I was expecting. You can just run away from the fights for now, if they are too difficult and come back when you are ready. Maybe it is all about expectations after all?
I can see myself playing this for hundreds of hours and finishing the game. I am not gonna leave another game unfinished. I hope it won't be too harsh on me. But I am afraid I have a long way to go and it is going to be brutal at times.
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Screenshots are from the game, Elden Ring.
I have had the opportunity to play all the souls: Dark Souls I, ii, iii, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring.
My first souls was Bloodborne (in my opinion the best), I remember loving it so much that I instantly wanted to play the other souls. The second one I played was Dark Souls 3, which was fun in every way.
My third game was Dark Souls 1 Remastered and I felt that it was a game that was quite outdated to play at this time, very clunky controls and I did not think it was a big deal to tell the truth. So it's normal that you played it and it didn't grab you.
My recommendation is that after finishing Elden Ring, give a chance to the most current ones: Dark Souls III (good option), Bloodborne (you need a playstation console, the best option) and Sekiro (maximum difficulty).
If you find it hard to pass a boss, in this game it's as simple as farming and looking for more broken weapons/armor. It is a myth that Souls games are extremely difficult, I'm bad and I've passed them all fairly smoothly, except for Sekiro which cost me years of my life.
I want to try Sekiro too, but I know it has some insane difficulty. Dark Soul 3 sounds a better option, it would have better controls and grahics than the first one.
Kind of true, maybe they are a bit too long and not everyone can spare that amount of time and patience that is required to complete such games.
Thanks for sharing your experience, now I know which souls-like to play next.
It's definitely a mistake if you're a virtual explorer like me, not a fighter. I mean, when I tried this one, it seemed like it was a mistake so I didn't continue playing it. I just can't stand dying continuously in a video game.
It's great that you're enjoying the journey and good luck heading towards that big castle.
Anyway, I feel like trying the game again after reading your post and seeing those fantastic photos. But if I try it again, I'll do it with the easiest difficulty.
This time I am expecting myself to die a lot of time. Once you set your expectations right, it seems less frustrating. And the fact that if something is too hard currently, you can just run away, get more powerful and come back with better weapon/skills to take it down.
Btw, there is no difficulty mode this game have like easy, normal or hard. So, everyone gets similar kind of experience? But you can definetly make it much more difficult by selecting a weaker class at the start, I guess.
That's the right mindset. Expecting challenges makes victories even sweeter. Plus, leveling up and coming back stronger sounds like a good plan and I need to try that out.
And yeah I may try the weaker class at the start if there's any.
My first experience with the Souls Games was Dard Souls 2 which was quite enjoyable even though I never even got close to finishing it while it's also rated the worst Souls Game.
I also played Elden Ring and also really enjoyed it but these games are just too long and to difficult for me to ever get close to finishing especially in 1 go. That said, there is something highly satisfying about them and had a great time with it. Good luck on your Elden Ring Run!
It is very satisying to finally kill that one boss which killed you mulitiple times in a row lol.
I have been avoiding this game despite the wonderful ratings because I don't feel I am good enough to actually succeed in it. Let me rephrase that: I am good enough, I just don't have enough time to devote to getting to that level and even if I do, I am going to log out one day, not play it for a week, and then forget all the controls.
I don't think it is that difficult but you need to spare a lot of time on it and I am not a fan of the controlls too, still taking some time to adjust to them.
I am a fan of souls type games, you are playing a game a bit difficult compared to other souls and including sekiro. For me sekiro I thought it was going to be hard, but it wasn't that hard to a certain extent. For this type of game is pure trial and error, level up and get more powerful weapons, game that I say is a challenge is Lies of P. In an excellent Lore, good graphics, and a vast armament to customize your way. However in that game you learn well to make a good block compared to other games. Have a lot of patience, when you defeat the strongest boss of all, it is a great satisfaction to your soul hehehe.... enjoy a lot and never give up, cheers!
Something similar to what you mention happened to me; in my case it didn't frustrate me, but the movement in general in Dark Souls seemed excessively slow and I didn't like it. However with Elden ring was different, since I tried it I noticed that everything was faster and the combat felt more satisfying. I hope you enjoy this adventure and when you complete it, I encourage you to try the DLC, which is an absolute marvel like the base game.
I also felt the same, but I noticed 2 details, the weight and stamina, those two things frustrated me a lot! and you could see me leveling up the Stamina!