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9.1

Elden Ring Review - A Shocking Blend of Souls Games & Open World - Marooners' Rock

Marooners' Rock writes:

While playing through FromSoftware’s Elden Ring, Andrew and I spent countless hours fighting our way through the game’s many enemies. Despite dying on numerous locations, at no point did we feel the game was unfair. With no end path insight, we kept pushing forward and kept learning from our mistakes. Outside of the main questline, players are able to choose their own path and explore a vast open world. With a variety of enemies to fight and combat styles to master, there is no true end. Even if you finish the game’s main questline, there are a variety of activities that will keep you occupied way past the main story.

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maroonersrock.com
140°

The 7 Best Souls-Like Games - Mastering the Challenge

The Souls-like genre remains popular, along with FromSoftware's classics there are many contenders. But which are the best Souls-like games?

toxic-inferno25d ago

Hmm... In my opinion, the 7 best are the 6 made by FromSoftware (DeS, DS1, DS2, DS3, BB and ER), then Lies of P. But each to their own.

kevco3325d ago

Still DS1? You don't feel it's been surpassed yet?

Demon's Souls has the remake of course, but DS1 has surely been outdated?

Smellsforfree25d ago

I think that the DS1 remake is better looking than DS2. The interior lighting matched with the low resolution textures in DS2 is very garish, IMO.

Besides graphics, what do you mean by DS1 being "outdated"? I'm someone who played through Elden Ring and just recently played through the DS series, and as far as gameplay went, there were all very similar.

Cacabunga25d ago

I haven’t played many but Bloodborne and NIOH1 are on top of my list.. had a blast with these 2

toxic-inferno24d ago

For world design and interconnectedness (that's a word, right?) DS1 is yet to be beaten.

80°

The prevalence of parrying: Why is it so popular?

Parrying has been creeping into more games, with almost every high-profile title of the last few years featuring it in some way.  Why?

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gamespew.com
phoenixwing35d ago (Edited 35d ago )

i understand the authors frustration i'm not the best at parrying in games. not that i can't complete a game that requires it but it is a definite harder thing for me than other kinds of techniques in games. which might be the main reason it's so heavily added in games nowadays. want to make your game challenging without having to do a lot of work? just add a parry boss. (what i mean by parry boss is a boss you have to beat by parrying such that their attacks will kill you otherwise)

Dudeson35d ago (Edited 35d ago )

I always think it's fine as long as such games also have the roll/dodge panic button. But I understand the will to parry, it seems so cinematic in a fight when you pull it off.

130°

The art of difficulty: What’s the best way to make games harder?

There are many ways that a game developer can choose to raise the difficulty in their games — but which ways are the most effective?

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gamespew.com
DefenderOfDoom241d ago (Edited 41d ago )

A great example on how to do difficulty in a video game is DOOM ETERNAL. Started playing on ULTRA VIOLENCE but then I started playing on NIGHTMARE after a couple hundred hours of playing on UV . What makes DOOM ETERNAL fun, is on Nightmare, the enemies are very aggressive ,but they give you the tools to defeat difficult enemies , you just have to learn how to use them .

FinalFantasyFanatic40d ago

Doom Eternal was so tough, but it felt so amazing to finish that game, even when the enemy feels unfair and gang up/box up into a corner.

Nacho_Z41d ago

Personal dislikes are bullet sponges and bosses with regular enemies thrown in. Just make the boss hit harder if it's too easy.

thorstein41d ago (Edited 41d ago )

I think Helldivers 2 really gets it right. If enemies are easy, they swarm. If they're high level, they tend to have good defense and need strategems to take down...or bait.

I never feel too angry if I die by swarm because it is usually my fault for not checking my 6. I don't even mind dying if a teammate drops a bomb on the swarm that is gutting me.

I don't like cheap deaths. When the game allows you to progress only to hit you with an enemy that is suddenly immune to all the things you've unlocked and mastered is just dumb. If the game doesn't do hit boxes right and you get killed in lame ways it is dumb.

The screenshot is from Elden Ring, a game I really enjoyed, but the scaling was silly. I didn't do the Eligtree til late game so it was goofy difficult. I thought the Elden Beast was rather cheap. Not a fun skill based match, but just cheap enemy. There was no sense of, "oh it defeated me because I did this or I did that" like all Souls/Borne games.

Crows9041d ago

Don't handhold. There you go. every game is immediately harder and more rewarding.

DarXyde41d ago

1. Intelligent opponents that don't have some set, optional strategy to win and requires more critical thinking.

2. Game provides players with the knowledge and tools about a game world to stand a chance (or at the very least, the opportunity to gain the knowledge and tools).

3. Don't insist on enemies having much more health than the player arbitrarily. Sometimes, you'll have more durable enemies who are armored or inhuman which I would say is fair. The best approach to this I can recall in recent memory is Naughty Dog games: You're extremely vulnerable without armor and can get picked off pretty easily, but your enemies are pretty beatable with the right weapons and strategies where you can't just brute force it. That said, ammo is in short supply, so you engage at your own risk.

4. Depending on the type of games, make resources more scarce without necessarily making enemies bullet sponges. It simply means you'll have to choose your battles carefully and have damn good aim. Like Uncharted. If you're not good at headshots, Crushing is a rough time.

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