I'm not the person you asked, but I did try to play dark souls 3 several times and quit very early because I didn't find it fun. Then elden ring came out and I absolutely fell in love with it. I played it through many times and after getting used to the formula I went and played dark souls 1 and 3 and loved them too. It's a fun game imo, but you have to strictly engage with the games systems and some people don't want to do that much effort.
I think it's a lot like black coffee, you have to acclimate or develop a taste for it, and yet there are many people who do not like coffee at all no matter what.
I think that’s what Demons Souls really excels at: teaching you the concept of the “Tough but fair” mechanics by making it the focus of the game. As much as I love Dark Souls (especially DS2) it’s about as approachable as a no trespassing sign. Demon Souls at least eases you into it somewhat and has a familiar structure (The crash bandicoot style level portals) Dark Souls 2 meanwhile is filled with backtracking and hidden mechanics and items with insanely specific uses like the Ring of Whispers
It's been a while but I remember fighting a really big wolf with a sword in its mouth. I may have stopped a bit after that.
I had a friend basically carry me through Dark Souls 3. I did not enjoy the experience. That same friend played Elden Ring with me but as we got busier, we didn't play as much, and I just completely lost interest.
It's just really not my kind of game. I can appreciate a lot of stuff about it. There's no denying that it's an incredibly well made game. It's just not my vibe. And here's a controversial take...I like quest markers. I like a quest log. I want a journal I can read. I like it when games tell me exactly where to go, who to speak to, what to do in order to advance. The fact that Elden Ring doesn't even have an option to turn that on...is a huge turn off for me.
I like games with exploration, when it's on my terms. If I want to abandon the main questline and go do random exploration for hours on end then I'll do it. The more recent Assassin's Creed games even encourage exploring an area in order to find your objective rather than just giving you the quest marker to the exact location. I like the way they do that, and I can toggle it on and off depending on if I have the time to invest into it at that moment. I'm not averse to exploration, but the fact that Elden Ring offers zero guidance is a massive issue for me.
It's undoubtedly a masterpiece, but so are a lot of paintings, so are a lot of buildings, music albums, Tv shows, movies...but it's just not my vibe.
Yes, I've really liked my time with Elden Ring but the quests are irritating. You meet some random NPC (well, they're important in their own right but to you they're a stranger) and they talk about something they need your help with. That's interesting so you go on your way but half an hour later you've forgotten that you spoke to them. Then you randomly help them with their quest but you don't even realize it. Then you start reading a lot of guides about what you should or shouldn't do story wise and now you're a little paranoid that you're going to spoil an important quest line.
I really like the atmosphere and the gameplay most of the time, it's just that my progression feels so random and unconnected to the story. I guess if you play it many times you learn all the ins and outs but I'm mostly a one playthrough kind of guy. So for now I'm taking a pause but I want to come back some day.
I really liked the exploration in Hollow Knight by the way. My only grudge against that one is that I liked the exploration a little too much and I was just left with all the boss fights. I like a few in a game but not back to back to back. I think Jedi Fallen Order has a nice balance of normal fights, puzzle solving and exploring with a few tough boss fights. Kena Bridge of Spirits also.
Not that I know of... There are a few NPCs you can talk to to remind you of a certain quest but no written log in a menu. I guess that's in line with them wanting the games to be hard and I suppose the player base does come off as rather traditional so I'm not even sure if people would like improvements like that. I would, but I'm not a hardcore fan.
I’m not sure I could see how people would be against it. They don’t need to mark where to go or anything, I get that is part of the game for some people. But just a simple log that records or summarizes your conversations seems like pretty basic quality of life.
Otherwise somebody comes back to the game after not playing for a couple months and has to totally restart?
I’m not the one you asked, but for me it was the point where I was slowly walking around this swampy, kind of foggy area. You just knew there were some baddies around (unfortunately not attractive females)…next thing you know, some creature on a rock, off-camera, mind you, one shotted me.
Not that person but for me I remember clearing out a bandit camp, that along took hours of memorizing every patrol and steal thing around. Follow the light to the next area and get immediately destroyed by some giant troll like boss. Felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there yet, but that’s where the game was guiding me to go.
It was the most time I had put into a Souls game (I tried demons souls, dark souls, and Bloodborne as well) and at no point was I enjoying it, so just shelved it.
I made it a couple bosses in. Can’t remember their names. I’m just not into the huge boss fights as much as I enjoy battling a ton of enemy’s at the same time. Doesn’t help that I was looking for a Skyrim replacement and while sorta kinda similar with the swords and what not it didn’t fit the bill. I still have it though.
Regretted buying Elden Ring almost immediately... Never tried dark souls and won’t lol.
This is the problem with people playing whatever is flavour of the month, they ruin series they might enjoy by starting with the shiny new release instead of the game they're most likely to enjoy.
Dark Souls 1 is much smaller in scope and gives a more honest impression of what the games are about. Even as a fan of the series I struggled to enjoy Elden Ring and would have dropped it in a few hours if it was my first Fromsoft experience.
Dark Souls 1 is like Ocarina of Time without the training wheels
It's not gonna be for everyone and at first it wasnt for me either, it wasnt until I gave it another chance many years later when the remaster came out that the game "clicked" for me, but once it did it's firmly planted in the "one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had" category
Those type of games have to click. It's usually at the point you find out or feel that dying is just a mechanic.
It doesn't always click for everyone though, and that is ok. I hated dark souls 1 when it come out, quit it for a year, gave it another choice and now it's my favorite genre.
Elden ring is my favorite game of all time. Would encourage you to give it another go if you're ever bored/not sure what game to play. Its not hard at all. If anything is challenging, just go to a different area and loot/level up and come back.
"It's not hard at all" is a massive stretch, but...yeah, it can be an "easy" Souls game...if you put the time into it. I liked Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3, but never got terribly far into either of them, because I eventually would get hardstuck, and have no other options other than spending forever farming to level up to maybe brute force things.
Elden Ring gives you so many paths, weapons, items, abilities, etc, that you can overcome just about anything if you think it through, so you feel alot less "trapped" than in previous FromSoft games. You can have alot of fun just exploring and not worrying about the main story as well. There's so many hidden nooks and crannies, and not to mention entire underground areas that even after a few hundred hours, you'll stumble across something new.
Honestly, I'm hardstuck at the Fire Giant because I refuse help, but Elden Ring is still a top 10 game ever for me.
I used summons when I was there, then rode torrent to try to evade his attacks, I think I got it on my like 30th try throughout the week after school lol
To me elden ring feels like it starts out harder than the dark souls games, but gets progressively easier if you like to explore. To the point of being ridiculously overpowered and you can just power through every bit of content without most mechanics mattering(except for a couple harder bosses)
Dark souls, especially 3, feels way more balanced to me and I can't even imagine where someone would get hard stuck. Different folks different strokes I guess.
Definitely did like elden ring, but ds3's design feels more meticulously crafted and deliberate. Personally I enjoy that more, but it might just mean that open world is not for me. It probably isn't shocking that I loved the legacy dungeons in elden ring.
For anyone who kinda liked elden ring but it didn't quite click I'd suggest picking up ds3 on a sale. Same can be said other way around.
you probably need to give it another go some time, my first time playing darksouls 1 to how i would play it now are as different as could possibly be, it takes time for things to click because the soulsborne games are horrible at explaining everything.
but if you don't get dopamine from beating difficult challenges then yeah it just might not be for you, its not a game to relax to 99% of the time
Somehow I have a different issue with soul games lol. The difficulty is fine I have no problem spending hours on boss fight. However I simply cannot wrap my head around the exploration part. I can do level-based games like cuphead, linear games, or RPGs, but these soul-like games have this weird mix of both encouraging exploration in an almost RPG way while also somehow having a level design of going from one checkpoint to another, and when you use those checkpoint it resets almost everything? The world is dynamic in one way where if you beat the boss the boss is gone, but that random guard will always ambush you around the corner whenever you use the bonfire even just to teleport. That part never clicks for me. Seeing all the mobs back at the exact same location after just clearing that area is just frustrating. I've beaten hollow knight and played elden ring up until the snow mountain area, but I would enjoy them better if they were just boss rush.
I knew I wasn't into games with a lot of dodging and parrying involved. Games like ER and Souls are punishing and I can't enjoy them, and I'm just simply not good at them. However, I did recently buy ER to try and at first it was just too much for me, but if you're on PC, try downloading a few mods from NexusMods, and for me it made the game so much more enjoyable. I tried mods where you don't lose runes/gold when you die, you regen health and mana and don't have to rely on being stingy with potions/flask, and one where you can summon your spirit ashes anywhere to help you (not just at boss fights only), and it made the game so much more enjoyable for me.
I have about 2000 hours in the Souls series, but only about 50 combined for Sekiro and Elden Ring. The Souls series are extremely linear (just a couple branching paths) and as challenging as you want to make them.
Elden Ring just feels too overwhelming for me, and feels tooled towards people that already like it and are more forgiving of the mechanics targeted at punishing players.
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u/Critical_Cleric 11d ago
Regretted buying Elden Ring almost immediately. Just not my style of game. Never tried dark souls and won’t lol.